Square 1
by witchwinx
Summary: Sakura just couldn't win Sasuke's heart, or even melt it. But now she's forgotten it all and seems to be a completely different person. The new Sakura unwittingly begins to do what the old Sakura couldn't.
1. Pain and a new world

Ringing. Ringing. Pounding through her head. Blinding her. She clutched her hair and scrunched up her eyes. What was it? What was this… thing, taking control of her? God, it hurt so much. Why wouldn't it stop? Why didn't someone help her?

"Help me!" she sobbed. "Save me!"

"Sakura-chan!" She heard a cry and felt her body being rocked forward and backwards. She opened her eyes a fraction. Who was this strange boy with spiky yellow hair and cerulean eyes looking down at hair, brimming with concern?

"Sakura-chan, what's wrong?"

"Save me!" She was in too much pain to say anything else. She needed help. Why didn't someone save her? Suddenly, for the first time, she thought of something other than her pain. It was just one image. It seemed to force itself into her head.

A thin snake-like face, pale, with a sickly smile and the eyes of a snake. Who was he? What was his name? Something was coming back to her.

"Oro-Oro…Oroshi-Orochi…Orochimaru!" Yes! That was it!

"Orochimaru!" She screamed once more. "Save me Orochimaru!"

"Sakura-chan!" His eyes seemed disturbed.

"He was telling the truth." She heard a new voice, and saw a boy with dark eyes and straight black hair. No, on second thoughts it was slightly blue.

"We have to take her back."

"To that bastard?" The other screamed. "You must be joking, Sai!"

"Look at her." His cold voice cut through the air.

The blond looked at her in despair.

By now she had gone back to clutching her hair and rocking back and forth, mumbling,

"Save me, Orochimaru. Please. Help me. I'm dying. I must be dying…"

"There's no other choice." She heard the cold voice come from inches behind her, but before she could turn, she felt a sharp pain in her neck, and then darkness.

* * *

She awoke in a dark cave. The pain had not stopped. She screamed at the fresh ache. She felt as if she was being slowly cut several times, with each cut hurting more than the last.

"Ah." She heard a new voice. A slimy voice that made her shiver. She looked up.

"O-Orochimaru?" She felt her voice trembling.

"I did tell you you'd have to come crawling back to me for help."

She heard the blond growl.

"What have you done to her, you bastard?"

Orochimaru gave an evil cackle.

"Nothing that you need to know, my dear Naruto. All you need to know, is that I can save her…"

She had a flash of relief, and was about to sigh, when it came back. She gasped,

"No, please! Help me!"

"…or I can make it even worse!"

She felt his fingernail pierce her head, and suddenly the pain was multiplied by a thousand times. She screamed and began to writhe on the floor.

"Sakura!" The blond's eyes flicked to her, but then returned to Orochimaru's face. "You bastard!"

She saw him lunge at Orochimaru, but he just grabbed him and thrust him to the floor.

"Naruto, Naruto, Naruto." Orochimaru said in a fake sad voice. "You will never learn, will you?"

"Why are you doing this?" She heard the cold voice for the first time since she woke up.

"Now that…" Orochimaru said, displaying a sign of annoyance for the first time. "Is really none of your business."

"Just save her, you disgusting low-life scum." It came through clenched teeth.

"Now, now, do you really think trash talking is the way to get me to help you?"

"I'm… sorry." Again the answer came through clenched teeth.

"What are you saying, Sai?" shouted the blond.

The cold-voiced one cast such a glare at him that he was silenced.

"Now that's more like it." Orochimaru smiled. "However, there is still one condition."

A second of grim silence entailed, before Orochimaru's eyes narrowed, while his mouth broke into a wide smile as the following words slid out of his mouth.

"She's mine."

The cold-voiced one's eyes narrowed, while the blond looked at Orochimaru as if he was crazy, which wasn't too far off the mark.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"She's mine – I get to keep her. She comes with me, and you never see her again." Orochimaru almost squirmed in delight. "Now, can I make it any clearer?"

"No way, you frigging bastard!" screeched the blond.

However, his look of furiousness turned to pain as Sakura began to quietly sob.

"Help me…" she whispered. "Save me… Stop it! Please, stop it! JUST STOP IT!"

She began to scream.

"My, aren't you selfish?" smirked Orochimaru. "Keeping her in all this pain when all I need is a simple yes?"

"Why are you doing this?" This time it was the blond's turn to say it. His voice broke while he said.

Orochimaru frowned, cocking his head to one side, almost comically.

"Didn't I already tell you?" He put his face close to the blond's, which made him recoil from the foul stench. "_It's really none of your business._"

"Don't you dare say it's to be your damned whore or I'm sure she'd rather die." The blond's voice shook.

"Oh, Naruto." Laughed Orochimaru. "Trust me; you don't need to worry about that quarter."

"Trust you?" muttered the blond. "I'd rather shove a pole up my ass."

"Naruto, we don't have a choice." The cold voice again.

Orochimaru smiled at the sound.

"At least someone has some sense!"

"Are you crazy, Sai? We can do something else! We'll-we'll-we'll take her back to Konoha and Tsunade will heal her." But the blond's voice was laden with doubt, and even he didn't truly believe it. After looking at the floor for a period of stillness he said, "I'm sorry Sakura-chan. Believe me all I ever did was for you." He slowly got up and walked to the cold-voiced one.

"Wait." The cold-voiced one spoke out once more. "Show us that you will heal her."

Suddenly, she felt the weight of a thousand elephants being lifted off her. She sighed and her tensed shoulders slumped.

"Th-thank you." she managed to get out before falling to her side unconscious.

* * *

When she woke, she was in a dark room, with four candles on wall-brackets as the only lighting. She was lying on a hard bed with a thin mattress. The room was bare apart from a small table next to the bed, a thick rope which hung by her bed and three doors. She got up and opened the first one. Inside was a tiny room, which she realized was a cupboard, containing some baggy robes. The next one she found led into a small bathroom. She was about to open the final door, when it was done for her.

"Hello Sakura-chan." She knew that slithering voice. "I see you've had a look around. What do you think of your new quarters?"

"Well, seeing as I don't remember having any other quarters, I guess they're alright. By the way, why does everyone keep calling me Sakura-chan? Is that my name?" Strangely, she couldn't seem to remember her name. She had been in too much pain to worry about it before, but now, it was slightly alarming.

"Yes, Sakura-chan. You had a bit of a bump on the head so you might not be able to remember much."

"Then why do I remember you?" Sakura seemed to have a strange new streak of inquisitiveness, which irritated Orochimaru.

"Because, my dear, I am your best friend. Remember that. I always was, and always will be." He put his face close to hers, causing her to shrink backwards, from risk of fainting from the fumes.

'Why does my best friend stink so much?' Thought Sakura to herself.

"Well, I don't have much time to waste, so I've got to be going, but if you need anything ring the bell." Orochimaru indicated the thick rope. He was about to exit, when he added, "Also, Sakura-chan, do not come out of this door. Remember I am your best friend…" He said as the door shut.

'Well, that was kind of creepy.' thought Sakura. 'My best friend seems to be a tad weird.'

She lay back onto her bed and put her arms behind her head.

She had been thinking to herself for four hours, when she got angry and rang the bell with ferocity.

A few minutes later, a meek looking girl entered.

"Is there anything to do around here?" asked Sakura abruptly.

The girl stood there, looking like a frightened mouse. Sakura, getting bored, rolled her eyes and said,

"Oh whatever, just get me some water."

The girl scuttled away. She soon returned with the water, and after drinking it Sakura. sat on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

'I wonder who I really am.' she thought. 'What did I used to be like?'

She spent an hour pondering and laughing like a lunatic at her own thoughts as she imagined ridiculous possibilities of who she used to be before she got fed up.

'That's it.' she thought. 'I'm out of here.'

She headed towards the third door and opened it. It took quite a bit of force as it was a heavy door and needed to be slid open. She looked out into a dark hallway lit by candles for as long as she could see on either side of her, uninterrupted bar a door exactly opposite her own. She was about to exit her room, when she heard footsteps and lo and behold was Orochimaru.

"Sakura!" he said, stopped still in his tracks. "What are you doing? I told you not to come out of this door!" For an instance he actually looked angry. Then he calmed down and a sickly smile spread on his face. "After all, I am your best friend! I only want what's best for you, right? Now I think you should get some sleep. It's quite late."

Sakura gave an obviously fake smile and then retired into her bedroom, slamming the door shut.

She waited to see what the reaction would be, but all that happened after about 5 seconds of suspense, was the sound of a key grinding in a lock.

"Argh!" Sakura slammed her hand down on her bed. "If my stupid best friend wants the best for me, why won't he let me have some damn fun?" And with that, she threw herself onto the bed and fell asleep with a vengeance.


	2. Exploration and a strange encounter

Sakura awoke with a start and looked around, recollecting her surroundings. She noticed a tray of food, if you could call it that, on the table by her bed. It consisted of a slightly black apple, a hunk of stale smelling bread and a glass of an evil-looking green fluid.

Sakura grimaced as she bit into the apple, which had sweetness of an overpowering quality, but she was too hungry not to eat it. She devoured the hunk of bread as well, but could not bring herself to try the fluid.

Instead, she sighed and decided to take advantage of the bathroom's incredibly primitive bathing facilities – a mug and a tap with no indication as to temperature.

She finished her bath, which had been full of surprises. On opening the tap, it had seemed of too cold a nature to bathe in, but then it settled into a nice warm temperature before rapidly going 'freeze mode', which caused Sakura to jump out of the way of the stream of water.

The water just seemed to be warming up again, and Sakura tentatively stepped into the flow, just to jump out again as it became of a scalding nature.

She then stopped the flow and applied the cake of rough orange soap which she had found on the ground.

On her first attempt to start it again, she was met with a lack of response from the tap, but on banging it, came a rush of filthy brown liquid cascading from the tap.

Sakura, disgusted, simply used some water from the sink to wash the soap off, and concluded her bath.

She used the thin, rough towel provided, flinching as it scraped against her skin.

Seeing as the only things in the cupboard were baggy robes, she had to garb them, finding, to her relief, that they had a tight fitting inner layer.

Suddenly, there was a big boom, and the ground shook, causing Sakura to fall onto the floor and the glass containing her drink to fall to the earthen floor and shatter, spilling her drink.

Sakura struggled to her feet, just to be greeted by another boom, which sent her back to the floor.

'What the hell?' she thought. She leapt up and ran to the door. She pushed it open and looked out.

There was another boom, almost causing her to fall out of her room, but luckily she managed to grab the door in time.

The boom seemed to come distinctly from the left, and Sakura cautiously stepped into the hallway and walked towards it.

A small nagging voice, the scaredy-cat in her, which had begin to dominate over her actions before her memory loss, begged her to go back to the room and shut the door before she was caught, but she had no time for this scaredy-cat, just the way she hadn't had when she was a young child.

Eventually, she reached a door, from which the booms, which had continued throughout her journey, seemed to resound.

She slid it open to be greeted with the blinding light of the rising sun. She was in a large crater in the ground, about 90m across and 30m deep. In the light, she could see the silhouette of a tall figure. From the stockiness of the figure, Sakura could tell it was a boy.

He had spiky hair and seemed to be wearing robes similar to hair own, and had a pouch containing some long stick-like things, which she guessed were swords, attached to his back.

In his hand, he seemed to be holding a small sun. It was a crackling ball of light that was so bright that Sakura had to shield her eyes from it.

With a smooth motion, the boy pushed the ball forward and thrust it into the rock in front of him.

A large boom sounded and the crater increased considerably.

Sakura fell over and shouted,

"Bloody hell!" in irritation.

The boy at once spun around to face her.

She could see him more clearly now. He had raven hair – a similar shade to that of the boy she remembered to be the cold-voiced one. His eyes strongly resembled onyxes, in both colour and texture – hard and cold. They slightly widened on catching sight of her and then narrowed.

She struggled to her feet and in a flash he was right in front of her. She was startled. She could not remember much, but she was pretty sure that that was not the normal travelling speed of a human.

"Sakura?" he asked. His voice was just like the rest of him – icy.

"I guess." was her reply, accompanied by a shrug. "I mean, I can't be sure, but everyone else seems to think so."

Sakura's reply was met with what she was soon to learn one of the few faces on the Uchiha face catalogue – the you-must-be-a-halfwit face, which basically consisted of the slight narrowing of the right eye.

"Where are Naruto and that pathetic excuse for a ninja?"

This time, it was Sakura's turn to employ the you-must-be-a-halfwit face.

Sakura considered saying,

"I'm really not sure what you're talking about."

But, she decided on a blunter approach.

"What you on about?"

The you-must-be-a-halfwit face reached a new level. It was really beginning to annoy Sakura.

"Look, could you please stop looking at me like that?"

Sakura? Say that? Not a chance!

"Look here, wipe that stupid look of your face, or I'll be tempted to show you the meaning of pain."

Not a muscle on the smooth face twitched.

But, before Sakura had time to say or do anything, she was down on the floor. She rubbed her face where she felt a bruise.

"What the hell? I don't even know who you are and you've already _hit _me? And I'm a girl! You're disgusting! That was totally out of hand! I didn't even do anything!"

A new look appeared on the stony face. The dumbfounded look – the right eyebrow raised a fraction.

"So you really are Sakura."

Sakura was back on her feet. She put her face close to his, glowering.

"I don't know about that, but I do know that you just hit me."

A second later, he was sprawled on the floor with an astoundingly black eye. The surprised look actually changed – both eyebrows raised instead of one! Though that didn't last for long – it was painful to raise his right brow after that.

'Irritating.' he thought. That was the eye with which he displayed the miniscule amount of emotion that he did allow to get across.

Her anger seemed to have abated a little. She came to him and held out her hand as assistance.

"Now at least do me the favour of telling me your name, and why you hit me."

He was debating whether it was beneath his dignity to take her hand, when he caught sight of Orochimaru in the doorway. Sakura had her back to him and did not see him.

When he saw them, a look of pure furiousness broke out on his face, but by the time Sakura followed his gaze to the door and saw him, he had managed a queasy smile.

"Sakura-chan! I see you have met Sasuke-kun, one of your fellow inmates."

Sakura turned back to Sasuke.

"So your name's Sasuke. Well, it's… meeting you."

"Sasuke-kun, can I have a word with you?" hissed Orochimaru.

"I would say no if you were really giving me a choice." said Sasuke as Orochimaru dragged him away.

"Sakura-chan has lost her memory. Permanently. She remembers nothing of her past, and it will stay that way. You will not tell her anything, or you know what will happen."

"Why is she here?" asked Sasuke without a twitch of a muscle.

"That is for me to know and you… not to." giggled Orochimaru, giddily tapping his nose.

Sasuke grimaced at the sight.

"She's not going to be your whore is she?" asked Sasuke, narrowing his eyes.

"Oh, no!" laughed Orochimaru, back to his old spirits. "Why – jealous?"

Sasuke flinched in disgust.

"No – I just couldn't get used to treating one of my old teammates as your whore."

Orochimaru laughed, sounding a little crazy.

Sasuke turned to walk away, but then stopped in his tracks. He turned back to Orochimaru.

"Oh, and, why is she so… different?"

Orochimaru laughed.

"That, again, is for me to know and you not to!"

Though, in reality, he had no clue.

He walked to Sakura.

"Come, Sakura-chan. Seeing as you have met Sasuke-kun, you may as well meet the other inmates of this establishment."

He led her back through the door and into the dark hallway, leaving Sasuke standing in the sun, his eyes narrowed to the point that he looked as if he was sleep walking.

They walked along the hallway. They soon reached Sakura's room, but they carried on walking.

Sakura noticed that Orochimaru seemed to be talking to himself.

"Um… Orochimaru, why are you talking to yourself?"

Orochimaru appeared startled for a moment, then the sickly smile returned to his face.

"It's just a habit, Sakura-chan."

Soon enough, they came to a large hall. In it stood a huge mass of people, standing still in rows, seemingly awaiting their arrival.

'How did they know we were coming?' thought Sakura to herself.

Orochimaru cleared his throat, even though there was really no need to, as everyone was silent, and said:

"Everyone, this is Sakura-chan. Sakura-chan, this is everyone. In particular, let me introduce you to Kabuto, my right hand man," he signaled to a man with a white pony tail and glasses. "Jirobo, Kidomaru, Sakon and Ukon, three of my most trusted companions," he pointed out some rather ugly men. "and Tayuya, who will be your personal guide to this complex." He pointed out a girl with black hair. "You may have noticed, there is a door next to yours. That is the entrance to Tayuya's room, and you can go there whenever you need help."

Sakura had noticed the door across from her room, but not the one next to her room.

The girl gave a wide smile – so wide that it was actually quite disconcerting.

"Come on – I'll show you around."

Sakura followed her, for once, meek.


	3. A tour and an idea's beginning

"Well there's actually not much to see around here." Tayuya shrugged, still smiling. "The room we just came from is the Meeting Hall and that's where we meet if there's an emergency, aka if you hear an extremely loud siren wailing. It should be fairly obvious if it comes to that."

They stopped walking once they reached their rooms and Sakura saw that there was, in fact a door next to her own.

"You know your room, and my room, so I should think that's pretty much it. Our tour comes to an end. Any questions?"

"Um, yeah, actually." Sakura began tentatively. "What exactly is this place? I mean this corridor and the Meeting Hall and all that?"

"Well, you've only seen a very small part of it, as Orochimaru-sama, your friend doesn't wish for you to be exposed to other parts which can be quite dangerous. In fact, this is a city."

"A city?" asked Sakura with a touch of cynicism in her voice. "Underground? Made of rather dimly lit corridors?"

"Yes." said Tayuya, seemingly oblivious to the touch of sarcasm in Sakura's voice. "This a complex of underground corridors, vast enough to be called a city. We live on the outskirts, but Orochimaru-sama keeps the Meeting Hall, the most important landmark in the city closer to the edge than the centre because this area of the city-" she gestured to the space around them, "_our_ area of the city is the most important… neighbourhood." she said, searching for the right word.

"With two-" Sakura glanced at the door across from hers, saying, "-or three inhabitants." rather doubtfully.

"Yes." Again, Tayuya failed to notice any irregularity in Sakura's tone. She too glanced at the door opposite Sakura's and said, "That is Sasuke-kun's room – I gather you have met him?"

Sakura nodded.

"Orochimaru-sama values us the most in the whole city, and therefore makes the Meeting Hall most accessible to us."

"Orochimaru is the leader or king or whatever you have?"

"Yes, of course!" said Tayuya, surprised at Sakura's ignorance.

'So my best friend is the boss around here. Well, that's got to be good.' Sakura thought.

"Anything else, or would you like to retire to your room?"

"Just one more thing – what's there to do around here? I mean what do you guys actually do?"

"What do we do?" Tayuya repeated her question. "Oh yes, of course! How could I have forgotten?" Her smile grew unimaginably wide as she signalled to Sakura and said, "This way."

She led Sakura in the opposite direction from the meeting hall. They walked for a while, until they reached the same door Sakura had gone through earlier on in the day.

"This place!" Sakura murmured as Tayuya began to open the door. She seemed not to hear.

Sakura followed Tayuya into the sunlight once again. It was later in the day now and the sun was duller, closer to setting. She once again saw Sasuke thrust a ball of light into the wall creating another crater.

'God, does that guy have nothing else to do?' thought Sakura.

"To answer your question," Tayuya looked at her knowingly, "we train."

"Train?" Sakura repeated, dumbfounded. Tayuya nodded. "But for what?"

"Oh, just to become better ninjas I suppose."

"Ninjas?" Sakura repeated once again. She could see Tayuya looking at her as if she was an idiot. "You mean we're all _ninjas_?"

Tayuya nodded, still wearing the sickening smile.

'I guess it's possible…' thought Sakura, 'But I don't remember how to do anything ninja-ish.'

"Al-alright, but I don't remember any… ninja skills."

"Oh that's fine, Orochimaru-sama will teach them to you soon enough."

Sakura nodded uneasily. She saw that Sasuke had noticed there presence and was looking at them. In less than a second she found him only a step away, staring at her impassively.

"Sasuke-kun!" Tayuya smiled. "I was just showing our new neighbour around. She'll be using this training ground as well."

Two choruses of "What?" sounded.

"I have to train with _him_?" Sakura asked, not bothering to disguise her disgust.

'Annoying.' thought Sasuke. Orochimaru had told him that this was his personal training ground, free for him to obliterate. Why was he then packing him in with a weak nuisance like Sakura? After this had passed through his mind, Sasuke took in something else Tayuya had said.

"_Our neighbour_?" he asked.

Tayuya nodded.

"She is staying in the spare room in our neighbourhood."

Sasuke fully noticed Tayuya's meaningful look, but he inwardly smiled, if that was possible. Orochimaru may have told him not to tell Sakura anything of her past, but he had not said anything about the geography of his 'neighbourhood'.

"What do you mean 'the spare room in our neighbourhood'? There is no spare room in my neighbourhood. Mine is the only room there. Unless Orochimaru has decided to add any overnight, of course." Sasuke said with a stony expression.

Tayuya laughed nervously, whilst Sakura frowned as she took in what was happening.

Tayuya was looking for anything to change the topic, and as she looked at Sasuke, it hit her in the face. Or rather Sasuke's.

"Sasuke-kun! What happened to your face?" She was actually totally shocked. The day had never come until now, or so she thought, that Sasuke's sparring opponent actually managed to bruise him in such a way. It almost made him look… ugly!

"Ohhh yeah, hehe. Well, I said sorry didn't I?" said Sakura. Sasuke made no movement but simply turned and walked away.

Tayuya's eyebrows raised as she took in the situation. She had vastly underestimated Sakura's strength if she could do _that_ to Sasuke's face, even if he hadn't been on guard.

Tayuya called Sakura's attention away from sticking her tongue out at Sasuke's back, and led her back inside.

When they had reached their rooms, Tayuya said,

"Tomorrow I will wake you, and after your meal, I will take you to the training ground where Orochimaru-sama will meet us for your training to commence."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I could make my way to the training ground by myself." Sakura said nervously.

"Oh, don't be silly. Orochimaru-sama would never forgive me if I let you wonder around unaccompanied! After all, you may get lost in one of the more dangerous parts of the city."

Sakura refrained from mentioning that it was a straight corridor with nothing branching off it, and instead said,

"Tayuya, do you think you could tell me anything about… who I am? I mean, I have absolutely no idea of who I was before I banged my head."

"Well, you've always been a very brave, loyal ninja, and friends with Orochimaru-sama and I ever since you were born. Now I suggest you get some rest – you'll need it."

Tayuya propelled Sakura into her room and shut the door, leaving her with the vague explanation.

Sakura sighed with frustration. Every second in this place was annoying her increasingly. She had been outside not more than an hour ago, and though it might have been late afternoon, it certainly wasn't night-time, and she was fairly sure that that was the time to go to sleep. Her exasperation was such a weight that she slammed her fist into the wall. To her surprise, she got, instead of the bleeding knuckles she had expected, a hole in the wall. She hadn't even hit it hard. Plaster fell to the floor, accompanied by some earth. Sakura realised she had hit an outer wall. The hole was very small, but she wondered if she could dig away some of the earth an at least have a view of the outside world from her room. As of yet, she was not considering creating a bigger hole and trying to escape – after all she had only been in this place for a couple of days – she wanted to give it a chance, and besides, she knew nothing of the outside world and would have nowhere to go.

Sakura used her hands to clear away some earth and make a depression in the earth she then tried to work upwards. Just when it seemed hopeless, she broke through to the surface. She cleared away some more earth from the top until she could see the sky by looking upwards into the small hole.

'There.' thought Sakura. At least she now knew roughly what part of the day it was. She had been right. It certainly hadn't been night. The sky was only now turning a deep blue.

She stepped away from the window and sat on her bed, pondering what Tayuya had told her. If she had lived here all her life and had always been friends with Orochimaru and the rest, why did she feel so out of place with them? However, she knew that could be explained by her loss of memory, so she focused on something more concrete. If she had always lived here, when Orochimaru had introduced the inhabitants of this so-called city to her, why had he also introduced them to her? Surely if Orochimaru wanted them to know who she was, and she had lived here all her life, they would know her already by now? Sakura had no idea of her real age, but her intuition told her she must be about 14 or 15. There were just so many pieces of information she had gathered which didn't fit together.

She wanted the truth, but she could see that neither Orochimaru nor Tayuya were going to give it to her. But Sakura smiled as a possibility entered her brain.

She lay on her bed and shut her eyes. She didn't know how much time she would have to sleep later on, and she wanted as much rest as possible.


	4. Oopsy daisy! and a lesson on justsus

When Sakura next woke, she lay in bed for a few seconds gathering her surroundings before remembering her plan and jumping out of bed. Her robe felt heavy and was chafing against her skin so she shrugged it off leaving the tight inner layer. She turned to her 'window' and looked up at the sky. To her satisfaction, it was pitch black and she could even see some stars twinkling.

She padded across her room to the door. She, very slowly and as quietly as possible, slid it open a tiny bit. She looked down the corridor both ways and saw no one. She, still quietly, slid the door fully open and carefully shut it behind her.

She tiptoed across to the room directly across from her room. She wondered why se was actually bothering with all this silence. Surely it was alright to pay a call on your neighbours? However, she doubted either Tayuya or Orochimaru would be amused if they caught her. She lifted her hand to knock, but then she glanced at the door next to her own and realised that the sound of knocking and the commotion which would follow would be too much. She would just have to hope that there was nothing in Sasuke's room she would regret seeing.

She slowly slid the door open, actually shutting her eyes in the process. When the door was open, she immediately spun into the room to face the door from the inside, and slowly slid it shut. She then braced herself, took a deep breath and spun around.

She let out the breath she had not realised she had been holding in a sigh of relief as she took in a room exactly the same as her own.

But after that initial tide of relief came extreme irritation.

'Where is Sasuke? Is that guy some kind of machine? He can't possibly spend the whole day and the night training! I may not remember much, but I'm sure that is not normal. Then again, being in one place in one second and 100 metres away the next isn't normal either. Let's just take it that Sasuke's not normal.'

After thinking some more while standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, Sakura decided that he would have to return to his room at some point, and that there was no point in standing in the middle of the room, so she sat cross-legged in his bed, leaning back.

She hummed quietly to herself for what could have been minutes or hours, when, suddenly, she heard a grating noise as one of the doors in Sasuke's room through which she had not come, slid open. Sasuke walked out of what was obviously the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.

Both stared at each other for about 4 seconds, Sakura's gaze horrified and Sasuke's gaze as emotionless as ever. Then, they both spun around, Sakura's profuse embarrassment apparent, as opposed to Sasuke's better disguised embarrassment.

"Sakura. What are you doing in my room in your underwear?" Sasuke more stated than asked.

"This is underwear?!" exclaimed Sakura, getting more horrified by the minute. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, my robe was just chafing against my skin and I thought I'd take it off I had no idea this was underwear, my robe was just feeling so heavy and I didn't know this as underwear, I would have definitely worn my robe if I had known this was underwear I'm really sorry-"

"Sakura. Stop babbling." Well, that was one thing that had carried through from her past. "Now tell m why you're here."

"Well, I just wanted to ask a few questions," said Sakura, looking at her feet, "but I'm not going to be able to talk to you if you're in a towel and I'm in my underwear."

"Turn around."

She slowly turned, her eyes half closed, to see Sasuke with his back to her, but fully dressed and wearing a robe. She hadn't even heard a sound!

"Whoa." she said, her eyes wide. "You've got to teach me how you do that. But, that doesn't solve the problem of me being in my underwear. And I'm not talking to your back, mister."

Sasuke grunted in annoyance. Why did Sakura, who was proving to be just as irritating as in the past, have to pile herself onto him?

"Go to my wardrobe, take out one of my robes and put it on. It'll be far too big for you, but you'll just have to manage."

"Ok." Sakura sidled to the third door in Sasuke's room, the one that neither she nor Sasuke had come from, and slid it open. It was the same as her own wardrobe except the robes were much bigger and she could see Sasuke's bag of swords inside it. She grabbed one of the robes and slid it open. It sagged off her body like a sack. She began to laugh.

"I bet I look like such an idiot." she spluttered.

"Sakura, can I turn around now?" As much as Sasuke liked to put on the façade of a wall himself, he did not enjoy talking to one.

"Yup."

He turned to the sight of Sakura flailing around in one of his robes, which seemed to almost envelop her. The hilarity of the sight was such that Sasuke actually inwardly smiled, which made him immediately inwardly frown. He had inwardly smiled twice that day! That was a record for the last four years.

However, none of his inner contradiction showed at the surface and he looked as impassive as ever.

"What did you want to ask me?" he said, cutting Sakura's laughing fit short.

"What? Oh, yeah. I just wanted to know if you could tell me anything about my past? I mean, who I was and what kind of person I was, and all? I've asked Tayuya, but her answer was pretty vague, and somehow I just doubt that Orochimaru's would be any better, so I thought I'd ask you."

"I'm sorry Sakura. I can't help you. Orochimaru has forbidden me to tell you anything about your past." Sasuke inwardly smiled for the third time that day. Again he had outwitted Orochimaru and managed to sow the seeds of doubt in Sakura's mind. Orochimaru may have forbid him to tell her anything of her past, but he had not forbidden him to tell her that he had.

"What? Why?" she asked confusedly.

"I don't know." was his curt reply.

"O-ok." she said, "Well, then could you tell me anything about my personality? What kind of person I was?"

Considering Sasuke's seemingly wall-like personality, Sakura somehow doubted that he'd be the best to assess and describe her personality to her, but she had to try.

"Well… you were… determined. I think. And-and loyal. And loving! Very loving. Even obsessive sometimes." Sakura had been right. Sasuke was finding all this talk about personality very disorientating.

"Um, ok. Thanks Sasuke. I'm sorry you couldn't tell me any more." Her face clouded over once more, remembering Orochimaru's 'prejudice' against telling her the truth of her past.

"Alright, then. I'll just…" Sakura weakly smiled as she walked towards Sasuke's door, slid it open and returned to her room.

Once in her room, she realised that she as still wearing Sasuke's robe, so she changed into her own and hid Sasuke's in her wardrobe where, hopefully, no one would find it and realise that she had made a trip to see him.

Then, she sat on her bed, with her knees tucked to her chin and pondered what Sasuke had told her. She didn't think too much about what he had said about her personality, as he had seemed a bit stuck for things to say, and Sakura doubted the validity of his statements, though she did wonder what he had meant by 'even obsessive sometimes'. She was more concerned about what Sasuke had revealed about Orochimaru being so determined that she should learn nothing of her past.

Why would he be this way? He was supposed to be her best friend after all. Didn't he want her to be at peace in her mind? And Sakura was sure he knew very well that the ambiguous descriptions offered by him and Tayuya were not enough to put her at peace.

She fell asleep in this position, still thinking about the same topic, which carried on into her dreams, which mostly consisted of her in a mystical multi-coloured mist where she was lost and could see nothing except for the occasional figure of Orochimaru, evilly laughing, Tayuya, evilly smiling, or Sasuke, doing absolutely nothing, passing her.

When Tayuya came to wake her from her troubled sleep, she was lying on her side, curled up in a little ball, her expression that of pain.

She shot up, startled at Tayuya's gentle nudging.

"Oh! It's you, Tayuya."

"Yes. I have brought you your breakfast." Tayuya proffered a tray, on which lay the same black apple, stale bread and strange looking liquid.

Sakura laughed nervously.

"Thanks, but I'm not very hungry."

"No, no! You must have some breakfast, or you won't have the strength to go through the rest of the day!"

"No really, I-I'm fine." Sakura stuttered too late as Tayuya thrust the bread into her mouth, followed by a swig of the fluid. Sakura grimaced in disgust and could barely stop herself from spitting it out, as she encountered the taste of mashed up paper, possibly mixed with a few shards of ground glass, in her mouth.

"There! Now come along, Sakura-chan! Orochimaru-sama is waiting!" Tayuya dragged her to her feet and pulled her along, sliding the door open and stepping out in one smooth movement.

They walked in a steady pace towards the left, where Sakura knew the training grounds lay. After a while they came to the familiar door, which Tayuya slid open, and then stepped into the blinding sunshine.

After her eyes adjusted, Sakura could make out the small silhouette of Sasuke, in a far away corner, this time seemingly doing something with his swords, but much nearer, in fact so close that she could smell his disgusting odour, stood Orochimaru.

"Hello, Sakura-chan." He said, seeming to sound almost menacing. "Today, we will commence with your training. Now tell me, do you remember anything of your skills as a ninja?"

Sakura weakly shook her head.

"Well, then let us begin with the area in which you were the most skilled. Chakra control."

Orochimaru demonstrated the way in which Sakura should control her chakra, and Sakura followed, with complete ease, after learning the basics.

The day carried on in the same note. Orochimaru would show Sakura a few hand-seals, which he told her performed acts called jutsus, and Sakura would follow with total comfort.

While Orochimaru's smile got wider, as he understood that she may have lost her memory, but not her ability, which would shorten the process of getting her back to the standard at which she was before immensely, Sakura got more bored as she found each new jutsu unchallenging and uninteresting.

Through the corner of his eye, the only other person on the training ground, as Tayuya had left some time ago, watched the pair with increasing surprise at and admiration for the girl.

He had known that Sakura had always been better than him at chakra control, but he was impressed that she was managing to catch on to and remember the jutsus so fast.

Finally, after teaching Sakura the elementary skills, Orochimaru said,

"Sakura-chan, my dear! You have shown much progress in the course of this morning, much faster than I had expected, so I am going to move you on to the next stage, involving more complicated jutsus."

Sakura brightened up upon hearing this.

"Now you have met Kabuto, my right-hand man –" The pony-tailed silver haired man with glasses suddenly appeared, making Sakura realise that Sasuke was not the only one here who could travel at breath-taking speeds. "- he is more experienced in your particular area of specialty than I, so, seeing as I have taught you the basic jutsus and you have been able to replicate them with ease, will pass you into his hands so he can begin to train you in this area."

"Um, what exactly is this area?"

"Why, the area of medicine, of course!"

"Medicine?!" asked Sakura, incredulously.

"Well, not exactly medicine, but expertise in medical jutsus."

"O-ok." Sakura said.

Orochimaru disappeared with a flash, and Kabuto, the other man approached her smiling rather cheesily.

"Let us begin, Sakura-chan."


	5. New knowledge and a sad story's comfort

Sasuke walked back to his own training ground with a slight limp. Sparring today had been excellent. Orochimaru had congratulated him at how far he had come, and he himself had felt truly comfortable against everyone he had fought, including Orochimaru himself. Of course, he would be inhuman to escape from all of his battles unscathed, so he walked back to his own training ground, where Kabuto was accustomed to meeting him at the end of his sparring sessions to heal his injuries.

On entrance, he came upon a silver head and a pink head, both looking at the same thing on the ground. As he came closer, he saw a ray of green chakra being emitted from Sakura's hand, directed at a small bird lying on the ground. On Sakura's face was a look of pure concentration.

As he approached them, he saw both entities lean back and relax, before Sakura leant forward, scooped up the bird, and held it up to the sky. As it took to its wings and flew away, Sasuke saw a look of pure joy on Sakura's face that made her look truly beautiful. The sight stirred something deep inside him, which had been still for a long time.

His train of thoughts was broken by Kabuto's voice.

"Ah! Sasuke-kun! You're here. Now, Sakura-chan, you will have the chance to try out what you have learnt on a human being. Remember, it is exactly the same, except for…"

Sakura finished the sentence of for him with a long strain of medical jargon, unknown to Sasuke.

"Very good." Kabuto smiled. He beckoned to Sasuke. "Come Sasuke-kun. Let Sakura-chan show you her new skills."

Sakura turned to Sasuke, smiling. He walked up to her and sat down sideways to her.

"Remember all the different steps." Kabuto reminded.

"Examine, assess, prescribe/decide, heal!"

Kabuto nodded in encouragement. Sakura looked intensely all over Sasuke, and then, surprisingly, not to her embarrassment, began to feel all over his body.

"What are the injuries which need healing?" Kabuto quizzed.

"Bruised face," began Sakura slightly abashed, "twisted ankle, fractured ulna, dislocated patella, two broken ribs, six broken phalanges, large gash down the back slightly to the left and general smaller cuts, scratches and bruises."

Sasuke was surprised to hear that he had obtained so many injuries when he did not even feel much pain.

"Excellent!" Kabuto said. He had realised much earlier on that Sakura had a lot of potential. He actually enjoyed teaching her, and she was quick to catch on to everything. "Now think about what you need you need to do to heal each injury. Leave the ribs for now – they are close to his heart, and though you are a very good student, we can't risk puncturing his heart as that would be fatal."

Sakura raised her hand to his back.

"Begin with the most serious injury." She muttered to herself.

Sasuke felt her chakra pulse into his back as she healed the gash. When she stopped he reached to his back with his uninjured hand, to feel nothing.

'Impressive.' he thought rather grudgingly.

She was smiling confidently now as she reached to his knee and did something similar. Sasuke actually felt something in his knee actually shift into place leaving no trace of pain. She moved to his arm, and then his fingers, and then to his toes and then his foot. Then she began to pulse chakra all over his body and Sasuke felt his cuts and bruises healing. She pulsed particular energy onto his face as an apologetic look crept onto hers.

She then sat back and took a deep breath.

"There." She said.

"Truly brilliant Sakura. How do you feel Sasuke? Ignoring any pain you might feel in the ribcage area, there are no problems, are there?"

Sasuke tried twisting his body in various ways and admitted that there was no pain coming from anywhere apart from the ribcage area.

"Now, I'm going to heal your ribs. Sakura, I want you to watch. I'm not going to ask you to replicate my actions, but it's good practice to watch anyway."

Kabuto looked at Sasuke's body and began to heal his ribs, whilst Sakura gazed at his hands with the utmost concentration, and Sasuke looked at Sakura, his face a blank.

When Kabuto had finished, he stood up, and so did Sakura. Sasuke was shaken from the trancelike gaze at Sakura which he had been holding, and stood up as well.

Sakura noticed that the sky had turned a deep blue.

"Well, that's the end of your training for the day." Kabuto's cheesy smile returned. "I'll see you here tomorrow to begin on some new jutsus."

Sakura smiled and nodded.

Sasuke had abruptly turned and begun walking towards the door when he had stood up and Sakura ran to catch up with him.

"That was so cool!" she said, on reaching him. "I didn't think I'd be particularly good at healing, but I love it! Whenever I do it, I get this amazing warm feeling. You know what I mean?" She looked sideways at him and shrugged before he could respond. "No, guess you don't."

Sasuke remembered the look he had seen on Sakura's face earlier on, and though he certainly hadn't felt what she was talking about for a long time, he thought he understood.

"It used to be what I did before, right?" she continued. "My 'area of specialty'." Sakura quoted Orochimaru. "And Kabuto's really cool. He's much better than Orochimaru. And he doesn't stink either. I can't wait to learn more jutsus tomorrow."

They walked in silence for a while, before Sakura suddenly said,

"Hey Sasuke – why do you train?" she looked at him expectantly, but was met with a lack of response. Afraid she hadn't explained herself properly, she continued, "I mean, Tayuya said people train to be better ninjas, but they must have a reason for wanting to be better ninjas, right? After today, I realise that I'm going to want to train because I love healing things – it's just sort of my… vocation. But why do _you_ train?"

Yet again, Sasuke failed to reply. This time, Sakura was angered. She stopped walking and grabbed Sasuke's shoulder and spun him around.

"Look here, mister, you might think you're all high and mighty and better than everyone-" she began to jab her finger into the middle of his chest. "-but you can bloody well keep your airs to yourself, because I'm pretty sure no one else wants to talk to someone bearing a strong resemblance to a brick wall. No, actually, a 10m thick steel wall. When someone asks you a question, I think it's polite to answer them, not just keep walking as if you heard nothing, or they're just a little fly buzzing in your ear." She stood there, looking determinedly at Sasuke.

There was a moment of stillness before Sasuke stepped closer to Sakura, his frame towering over hers.

"Do you really want to know why I train?"

Sakura, intimidated for the first time, tried to take a step back, but found herself against a wall. She looked at the floor, embarrassed by their proximity to each other.

But Sasuke just stepped even closer.

"Do you?"

Sakura gave a small nod. Sasuke was so close she could hear him breathe.

"To kill my brother and avenge my clan."

He at once stepped away and began walking down the corridor once more, slightly faster this time.

Sakura looked after him, shocked and unable to move for a few seconds, before running after him.

"What? You want to kill your brother? I don't understand."

They had reached their rooms. Sasuke opened his door and stepped inside, and was about to close it, but Sakura slipped in after him.

"Are you… alright?" she asked tentatively. "I'm sorry I asked you. I didn't mean to touch any sore spots."

Sasuke gave a tiny sigh, so slight that Sakura barely heard it.

"Take a seat." he said, signalling to his bed. She sidled over to his bed, still looking at him with concern.

And he began. Whilst looking at the floor, not wanting to meet her eyes, he told her his story. The story of his clan's massacre, and how after it, he had only lived for two things. To kill his brother and restore his clan. How he had left his village, his friends and everything he had left to come here and accomplish at least his first goal. He left out nothing, except for her part in it, of course.

At the end, she was sitting on the bed, her face expressionless. Then, she slowly got off her bed. She walked over to him, looking up at his obsidian eyes, finally comprehending everything Sasuke had been through. Her own eyes filled with sadness.

Then she did something completely unexpected. She reached out and pulled Sasuke into a tight hug. The hug lasted a few seconds, before she stepped away, gave a small smile and then stepped past Sasuke to his door, which she slid open before exiting and shutting it behind her, leaving Sasuke looking at her with raised eyebrows.

Sasuke would never have admitted it, but the small action filled him with some kind of peaceful happiness which was more comforting than all of the words of consolation offered by all the people of Konoha shortly after the massacre.

Sakura, meanwhile, had entered her own room and was sitting on her bed, playing with the rope that hung beside it.

She thought about what Sasuke had told her.

'No wonder he's always so closed up. After all he's been through, anyone would have developed a shell around themselves. He probably doesn't want to be hurt any more – and he thinks the best way to do that is to hide from the world in a mask of emotionlessness. Maybe I should help him.' Sakura thought about it, but in the end decided to at least wait until she knew Sasuke a little better and would be better equipped to help him. 'But I vow to myself, I will help him. He's lost, and I'm going to save him.'

She leant back into her bed and fell asleep, happy with what she had decided.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was also sleeping, his dreams not haunted by Itachi for the first time in many years.

Far away, in a village very familiar to Sasuke, but as of yet unknown to Sakura, a blonde woman was slamming her hand into her desk, creating a hole in it and causing the paperwork lying on it to be sent flying. She wore an expression of anger but also of pain. She covered her face with her hands.

"I was sure no one knew! I would have never allowed her to go otherwise. How could I let this happen?" she asked herself despairingly.

The two ninjas opposite her remained silent. One of them looked broken, the pain on his face clear. The other simply looked observant, but expressionless, not really knowing how to feel.

"You know what?" said the blonde woman, looking up. "It doesn't matter, because we're going to get her back. Even if we need an army to do it."

"Tsunade-sama, that may not be the wisest plan. To-" but the boy never finished his sentence.

The woman rose up, her eyes flashing, angrier than she had ever been before.

"Am I the Hokage, or are you?" she hissed, "I think I know what is best for this village, and I know that we must get her back at any cost. This is not me speaking as a sensei, a friend, or even a sort of mother." Her eyes softened slightly, before hardening once again. "This is me speaking as the Godaime. Now get out. Both of you."

The duo filed out. Once they were gone, however, the woman crumpled back into her seat and became human once more.

"Shizune!" she shouted. A small woman came into the room. "Get me sake."

However, both Sakura and Sasuke were oblivious to the commotion in the village so far away. Neither knew anything of what would befall them in a few months' time. They were only aware of what was happening in the present, just across from themselves, and though Sasuke wouldn't acknowledge it, and Sakura wouldn't know it, they were both happier than they had been for a long time.


	6. An exhilerating battle and a smile?

Sakura paused for a moment, panting and gathering her senses. She scanned the area and easily sensed Sasuke's chakra signature. She rolled out of the way of a few kunai and resumed running, only to be greeted by hundreds of shuriken spinning in he air around her, seemingly coming at her from all directions.

She smashed her fists into the ground, creating large crater and cracks, but also enough impact to deflect all the weapons coming her way.

'For now at least.' she thought.

She ran for a few seconds, and then saw him, lying on the ground with a couple of kunai in his back, and more coming through the air his way.

She dived and rolled him out the way, only to hear a poof and see him disappear into thin air.

'Damn,' she thought, 'fooled again.'

Suddenly, she felt a hard push against her back and she was on the floor on her back, with Sasuke on top of her. She could hear the sound of weapons hitting his back.

"What are you _doing_?" she asked furiously. "You're already injured."

His face showed no signs of pain as he said,

"Yes, but if you're injured, who's going to heal me?"

Her anger abated as she admitted the truth of his point.

"Sakura." he said, "I can't reach my weapons without exposing my face."

Sakura understood his meaning and attempted to manoeuvre herself around so she was facing the floor.

She felt him remove something from her weapons pouch and then the dull clank of metal against metal.

"Where can we go?" she asked urgently.

"I have an idea."

She felt him slip one hand around her waist, and the next moment, they were on the edge of the forest, on a platform of earth which hung over a large valley. The fall was a long one.

The whooshing sensation she had felt while they were travelling had been amazing, and though she had now experienced it several times in the last month and a half, she could not get used to it, and it left her elated.

She felt the pressure of his weight reduce and she spun around and got up to a sitting position. Without saying a word, she reached to his back and pulled out the various weapons which had embedded themselves there. She then reached out and began to heal the wounds.

They remained in this position for a while before Sakura's eyes widened as she saw a multitude of weapons flying out of the forest which she was facing.

She thrust Sasuke to the side, but it was too late, and Sakura could only do one thing. She punched the ground once again, and it served the same purpose as before.

Except, she had left one thing out of her calculations. From the two craters she had made, cracks were spreading, and she noticed too late that hey had reached the edge of the small plateau on both sides, and that the small section of land on which she was standing would fall, leaving her to drop to the valley below.

Sasuke also realised this at the same time, and when the platform did break off and Sakura began to plummet, he was ready.

He swung himself over the edge of the platform. Sakura managed to grab hold of his foot.

They remained there, suspended in the air, for several seconds.

"Can you haul us up?" Sakura shouted.

Sasuke could only grunt in reply, as he was holding on in an awkward position, and the injuries which Sakura had not finished healing were beginning to take a toll on his strength and focus. The gashes on his back were now being stretched as he had to hang on to a cliff top for his life, and he was experiencing a searing pain, which wasn't helped by the fact that he was facing outwards, away from the cliff side, and holding on in a strained backward position.

Sakura took that he probably couldn't haul them up as he was not making any effort to do so.

She began to pull herself up his leg. When she could not go any further as she would have to pull against the cuts on Sasuke's back and make it even harder for him to hold on, she said,

"Tuck your knees in!"

Sasuke did so, with great difficulty, and grunting all the way.

"Give me your hand!" Sakura shouted. "Only one!" she added as an afterthought.

Sasuke reached his hand down to her, and she grabbed it, letting go of his leg.

"Swing me back and forth!" she shouted.

Sasuke thought he could see where this was going and began to swing her.

"Now let go!" she shouted, as the swings reached great enough momentum.

But Sasuke didn't.

"You'll fall!" he rasped.

"No I won't – just trust me!" Sakura replied.

Sasuke did so reluctantly on the next swing.

Sakura felt as if she was hanging in mid air. Then she brought her hands forward, and then pushed them back with such force that she was propelled forward.

She landed with a thud on what remained of the platform. She then grabbed Sasuke's hand and hauled him up with ease.

They simply stood on the platform for a few seconds,panting, exhausted, before Sakura asked,

"Do you still have it?"

Sasuke felt in his bag of swords and found the round block of wood he was looking for. He nodded.

"Good, let's go. Healing here obviously isn't a good idea."

Sasuke again acquiesced.

"I don't have enough chakra to…"

Sakura understood. She put Sasuke's arm around her neck and began to run.

Sasuke had a strange sense of history repeating itself. Where had he been in the exact same position? Oh yes, the Chuunin exams.

Sakura concentrated on running as fast as possible, and soon they reached their destination – a clearing in the forest, with a wooden pedestal with a round slot in the centre in the middle of it.

Sakura eyed their surroundings wearily, before whipping out a kunai and throwing it at the pedestal. To her great joy, it simply embedded itself in the wood.

She took the round block of wood from Sasuke, who was on his knees, and slotted it into the pedestal. At once a familiar snaky figure appeared.

"Well done, Sakura-chan and Sasuke-kun! I am truly impressed on how much you have been able to accomplish together! You have completed my challenge in full, and Sakura-chan, after you have, if you please, healed Sasuke-kun, you may return to your quarters. Does that agree with you?"

Sakura nodded, breathless. Orochimaru smiled and disappeared.

Sakura turned to Sasuke and sank to her knees her reached to his back as she healed it. The challenges they had faced in the last week had been gruelling, but it was finally over. For a couple of days at least. Sakura did know that, soon enough, Orochimaru would present them an even more difficult task, as he had done every few days for the last month.

After she had successfully healed Sasuke, the pair got up, and began to walk in the direction which would lead them to their own training ground –Sasuke couldn't be bothered to use his chakra up and go any faster. Sakura, however, was full of energy.

"_Oh _yeah! We were _so _good!" She began to walk faster as she punched her fists into the air. She twirled around to face Sasuke so she was walking backward. She held up her hand. Sasuke rolled his eyes and held up his own. She smacked it with a deafening thwack.

"We did _great_ Sasuke my man – I mean, correction, we did AWESOME!!!!" She ran ahead and began to do an aeroplane dance. "Whoop whoop!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and inwardly, or so he thought, smiled at her antics. It was becoming a much more common thing than before, he also noted.

Suddenly, he noticed that Sakura had stopped making any noise, and looked around to see her standing behind him, her jaw dropped in a comic display of disbelief.

"What?" he asked. Sakura stopped standing like a dead fish and ran forward to face him.

"Didn't you realise?" she asked, or rather sang, grabbing his hand and twirling herself around. Sasuke rolled his eyes. She turned to face him, cupping his face in her hands before twirling away with her hands in the air.

"You _smiled_!" she cried.

The you-must-be-a-half-wit face reigned Sasuke's features.

"It was a _smirk_, Sakura, a _smirk_." he said cuttingly.

She, however, continued singing,

"And now you're childishly arguing with me!"

The you-must-be-a-half-wit face had never been stronger.

"It was a _smirk_ Sakura. Just admit it."

"Smi-le." she sang.

"Smirk."

"Smile."

"Smirk."

"Smile."

"Smirk."

"Oh, whatever, it doesn't really matter," she carried on singing, "whatever it was it was it was way more emotion than you normally show! And that just goes to say…"

Sakura drummed on the ground and held her breath as if she was introducing the final climax, while Sasuke looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"…Sasuke's a human, Sasuke's a human, na na ne na na, Sasuke's a human…" she began to sing in a highly irritating, whiny voice.

"Oh, shut up Sakura." he said to no effect as they carried on walking.

As they approached their quarters, Sakura said, as if announcing the end of some all important sports match,

"And so the day reaches its magnificent end. I will see you later my dear human Sasuke."

"Shut up." was Sasuke's only response as he entered his room, leaving Sakura to laugh in the corridor.

However, when he entered his room, he couldn't help another small smile as he thought of Sakura. Who could help smiling after spending a month and a half with her and her extraordinary behaviour and outlook on life? The way Sasuke saw it, she was kind of a small beam of light in his world of the darkness which accompanied continuous training for such an ominous reason.

Sasuke forgot the issue for a while as he went in to his bathroom to wash off a week's sweat.

When he finished, he returned to his room and redressed into a robe, before collapsing into his bed, to make up for a week's fatigue, however, he could not fall asleep for a while. He noticed it was getting noticeably colder all the time. Some of the time during the last week they had both felt positively frozen, and Sasuke smiled at the memory of Sakura's first experience of rain –she had leapt up and down as she felt the streaks of water on her face and she had sung and danced in the bitingly cold rain, while Sasuke watched from a distance, under the shelter of trees, having given up trying to convince her to take advantage of the shelter of trees. He fell asleep while his thoughts were still on the same note.

Sakura, meanwhile, had returned to her room and had similarly taken a bath and was now relaxing on her bed and humming, smiling as she thought of Sasuke's smile earlier on that day, and wondering if it would ever repeat itself.

As she fell asleep, she was completely oblivious to the surprises she would face tomorrow, which were actually totally unexpected to her.


	7. A strange dream and a natural phenomenon

**Hi all. I just want to thank you all for reading and also I forgot to say I don't own Naruto and all that stuff, so yeah. I don't own Naruto. Also I just want to tell you guys, I'm sorry if you think this chapter is a little bit off topic. I just couldn't resist adding some endearing moments between the two, because, as some of you said, they're a really cute couple. If you think this is like totally random, I don't blame you, and I'm also warning you that there are likely to be more chapters which are mainly cute moments and scenes between the two. Those of you who like it, great! You're in for lots more! Apart from that, enjoy! And also, please review! I'm open to (constructive) criticism as well as compliments (duh!)!**

_He looked at her. Some kind of insatiable anger cursed through his body. But with this anger came also a sort of elation at the power he felt. He couldn't help but let a cruel smile slip across his face, amongst the angry marks that almost made him look hideous. _

_He saw the fear in her eyes. That just increased his anger. Whoever had done this was going to pay._

"_Sakura," His voice slipped out like molten lava, "Who did this to you?"_

_He didn't even really care. He knew that all this was just an excuse to exhibit the power he was exalting in._

_She sat there, motionless, paralysed by fear. Oh yes, they were going to pay._

"_I did." The arrogant voice made it sound more of a challenge than a confession. A challenge that Sasuke was more than ready to face._

_The voice sounded again as he did his jutsu, but Sasuke was way ahead of him. He almost laughed at how pathetically easy it was for him to shield Sakura without feeling an ounce of pain. _

_He saw the amazement on the nin's face before throwing him to the ground and positioned his foot on his back, whilst holding his hands, before pushing with his foot and hereby breaking the nin's arms. He let out a terrifying scream. _

_Sasuke heard a gasp of fear behind him. Why was she still afraid? He was taking care of her persecutor. Maybe the others had hurt her too?_

"_Now it's your turn." He turned to the one swathed like a mummy and began walking towards him._

_He saw fear in what he could see of his face, and that only brightened the prospect of slowly ripping him up, piece by piece._

_But, suddenly, he felt something clinging onto his back, and saw small hands wrapped around his body, and he realised it was Sakura. What was she doing? Why was she always such a pest? He was dealing with everyone who could hurt her, wasn't he? Why did she have to impede him by clinging onto him as usual, except this time literally? _

_But then he felt her tears soak through his shirt and onto his skin, and he felt her fear seep into him._

_And then he understood. She was not afraid of the nin. She was not afraid of being hurt. She was afraid of _him_. _

_His curse mark receded like wildfire and all his bloodlust and desire to kill vanished. She was afraid of him._

_Suddenly, he was on the only road out of Konoha, listening to her spout drivel._

"_I'll do anything for you!" she cried hysterically. _

_Why was he still here, listening to all this nonsense flowing from her mouth like a river? Sentimental reasons? Possibly. How could any weak irritation like Sakura ever understand him? There was no point staying any more. It was time to get out of here._

_He turned to face her. He could see the heartbreak on her face, but it didn't even slow him. He was ruthless. He had to be. _

"_You're still annoying." he said, with the hint of a cruel smile on his face._

_It did the trick. She was shocked and stood still. He continued his slow walk out of the village._

"_Don't leave!" she screamed in a frenzy of hysteria. "Don't leave or I'll scream!"_

_This was the only thing she said that whole night which even affected Sasuke. In a flash he was behind her._

'_What should I say?' he thought, 'There's no point in deliberately evoking her resentment, so might as well say something nice.'_

"_Sakura. Thank you." He knocked her out. _

_The decision was made. There was no going back now. It hurt him to cut loose, but it didn't matter. He saw the orbs of emerald closing. The world seemed to have slowed down, as they grew dim and the eyelids began to lower themselves._

And then they were open again. Bright, slightly worried.

"Sasuke!" he heard. What was happening?

Then she shook him and he jolted awake.

A dream. It had all been a dream. Undoubtedly an exact repetition of the past, but a dream nonetheless. He blinked a few times, before registering Sakura's face a few inches away from his own, holding her fingers directly in front of his eyes and clicking.

He slapped her hand away in irritation.

"Yes, I'm awake." he snapped, "Now what are you doing here?"

"There's something really weird happening. You have to come to my room!"

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"It's this weird… white stuff, I'm not sure, urggh!!!" she said, rolling her eyes, "I can't be bothered to explain. Just come to my room."

She practically dragged him to his feet and pulled him to his door, before exiting and crossing the corridor to her own.

Sasuke was horrified by the state of the room, and raised his eyebrow to show it. Robes were strewn everywhere, and several trays containing some foul smelling food that he could have smelled a mile away were littered across the floor.

"How can you live in this place?"

"Oh it's fine, that's not the point, look!" She lifted her hand and dramatically pointed to a hole in the wall. Sasuke could see a few brown crumbs on the floor beneath it, but more noticeably was a cascade of a white substance which had blocked up the hole, and of which lumps were tumbling to the floor.

Sasuke almost couldn't believe it. He walked forward and picked up a lump of the substance. It crumbled, before melting, leaving his hand cold and glistening.

It was snow! He hadn't seen snow since the earliest days of his childhood. If it had filled this hole in the wall-

'And why does she have a hole in the wall?' Sasuke wondered.

-then the outside must be…

He turned to Sakura who was gaping at his hand, astonished that he had suddenly made the material disappear and turn into water.

He grabbed her hand and began pulling her out of her room and into the corridor.

"Come on." he said as he pulled her in the direction of the training ground.

"What? We're just going to go _train_? What is that stuff? You haven't even told me what it is yet!"

"Just follow me." Sasuke, said, always a man of few words.

Sakura followed, casting childish glares and pouting at Sasuke.

When they reached the door to the training ground, Sasuke stepped forward and opened it, before leading Sakura into the world of white outside.

For a few seconds, she simply stared, her mouth hanging open, this time in a gesture of true disbelief. Then she slowly stepped forward, her facial expression unchanged, as she put her hands out to catch the rapidly swirling snowflakes on their downward spiral to the ground.

She felt her feet crunch into the white blanket that was carefully cast over the ground. She gasped as she felt the freezing powder envelop her feet.

She turned to Sasuke.

"What is it?" she asked, in an awed voice.

"It's snow." said Sasuke, his features tilted in a one-sided smile. "When it gets really cold, water in the clouds which usually comes down as rain half-freezes and comes down as this."

Sakura still had not lost any of her original wonder and twirled around whilst looking upwards to see the array of falling snowflakes.

She lifted her hands to catch a particularly slow-falling one and managed to see, a fraction of a second before it melted into shapelessness, the beautiful myriad of its pattern.

Her features creased into a smile and she threw up her hands and laughed, before falling down and simply sinking into the snow.

She lay there for a few seconds before lifting herself of the ground and seeing the perfect imprint of her body in the snow.

She turned to Sasuke, who was leaning against the doorway with the same expression on his face, and said,

"Look! Try it!"

Sasuke beckoned to her, and performed a few hand seals.

"So you don't catch a cold." he said in explanation.

"No, come on! You have to do it to!"

Sakura persisted in tugging at him until he gave in, rolling his eyes, before performing the hand seals on himself and following Sakura into the snow.

She rolled about in the snow laughing, whilst Sasuke looked down at her, smiling.

But, he saw the naughty gleam in her eye too late, and the next second he was down on the floor rolling with her.

"Sakura, stop." he commanded.

But she saw the smile he was unable to keep off his face and was about to continue, when she had an idea.

Her expression sobered up as she said, in a responsible voice,

"You're right, Sasuke. We should go back inside."

His features expressed disbelief and suspicion.

However, Sakura didn't seem to warrant it, as she gestured him towards the door.

He turned, slightly unwillingly, as, believe it or not, he _had_ been enjoying himself, and began to work towards the door.

Then he felt a thud on his head, and turned to see Sakura, doubled up in laughter. He shook his head, and seeing the white flakes drift off, he realised that he had been tricked.

But that didn't stop a slightly evil smile enter his face. Sakura had no idea. This game he had played all his childhood, whenever it had snowed, before…

His face clouded over, but then he shook it off, and got his mind back in the game.

"Sakura." he said sternly, "This jutsu doesn't protect against freezing water on your head. What you just did was extremely dangerous."

Sakura's expression was that of shock.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean to, is there any way I can heal you or something? Or Kabuto? Should we get Kabuto? Oh no, what if you catch pneumonia, it'll be all my fault, oh my god, what have I done…"

Amidst her rambling, Sakura had stopped paying attention to Sasuke. He had taken advantage of that to lean down, scoop up a big ball of snow, and then, he chose the opportune moment, just as she turned to face him, to throw it.

The snow landed on Sakura's surprised face, as she took in what had happened. Then, a huge grin spread across her face, as they both began frenzied throwing of snowballs at each other, while Sakura laughed and screamed.

Sasuke himself couldn't help a little chuckle escape his lips, at which Sakura feigned a faint, which brought Sasuke rushing to her side, before she rushed up and threw a snowball in his face.

The antics continued quite a while, before they grew tired and sank to ground for a while.

Sakura looked at Sasuke before brushing her fingers across his eyelashes.

"There were loads of snowflakes there." she explained. "You know," she carried on observationally, "Your eyelashes are quite long. Like a girl's!"

Sasuke glowered at her.

"They are not."

"They are!"

"They are _not_."

"Sasuke, when was the last time you looked in a mirror?"

Sasuke was about to provide a cutting retort, when, suddenly, a snake-like figure emerged before them. He seemed, and was, quite surprised to find Sasuke in such an undignified position, but made nothing of it.

"Sakura-chan! Sasuke-kun! You're already out here! Today is a bit of an inconvenient day for me and Kabuto, as we are quite short on staff due to the cold-" Orochimaru withheld the true reason, "-so I must ask you to train by yourselves today, in whatever fashion you consider appropriate. Does that suit you?"

Sakura nodded eagerly, an idea forming in her brain.

"Then, please, go ahead. I must needs depart."

Sakura looked scornfully after him as he disappeared.

" 'I must needs depart'? I'm pretty sure no one has said that for several centuries."

"And you would know…?"

Sakura stuck her tongue out at Sasuke before smiling.

"Well, dear Sasuke, I must needs tell you I have an idea."

Sasuke looked at her questioningly.

"I know what we're going to do today."


	8. A lesson for Sasuke and a day's end

**Thanks everyone for your reviews last time, this time I'm only going to say, keep 'em coming! And also, to Sakura's Indecision, what I meant to imply was that he didn't care which Oto-nin was attacking her, but when I read it back, I realise it wasn't totally clear, so sorry about that. Anyways, enjoy!**

Sakura strutted up and down before Sasuke, holding her hands behind her back and imperiously holding her head up in the air.

Sasuke looked at her with a raised eyebrow as he sat on the ground, leaning on the snow.

"Now, my dear protégé, you are a very good ninja. You know far more than me, and in fact, you could give me a lesson on some skills, if necessary. However, today, I have decided to take advantage of this blessed freedom, by giving _you_ a lesson, not about jutsus or skills as a ninja, but about something far more important in life. Now, can you guess what this is?"

Sasuke looked quizzically at her, whilst remaining silent.

"No? Well, my dear Sasuke, in this month and a half we have spent together, I have increasingly found this about you. That you are too heavy, not in terms of your physical weight, which could be compared to a feather as far as I'm concerned, but as in you are too serious, you never take anything lightly, you never have _fun_. This has improved slightly over the last few weeks, but I still think there is much improvement to be made. That is why I'm going to teach you how to do possibly the one thing I know how to do better than you."

She paused, taking in a deep breath, before continuing,

"I'm going to teach you how to _live_."

Sasuke looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"You gave me that whole speech just to say _that_?"

"Why of course, Sasuke, for as you are soon to learn, living is not only a very important life skill, but it is also enjoyable. But no matter. Come, let us begin."

She pulled Sasuke to his feet.

"Tell me, what do you know as of yet of living?"

Sasuke remained silent.

"In that case, we'll have to start from the very beginning. Our first important lesson: learn to speak. Often you'll find that people don't understand you. That they can't give you want you want. Sometimes, they might even think you're mute and treat you like a four year old, and some, not even particularly unobservant ones, might even mistake you for an inanimate table and place refreshments on your head.

"The reason for this is always that you don't talk. If you don't communicate with other people, how do you expect them to be able to understand you? Not everyone understands the language of raise an eyebrow when you want a toasted sandwich, or even, believe it or not, the language of narrow your eyes when you want some sake at room temperature.

"Therefore, you need to learn to speak the same language as everyone else. The one where you move your tongue and make sounds from your mouth. Ever heard of it?"

Sasuke cocked his head to one side and looked as despairingly as was possible for him at her.

"No? Ok, I'll just have to teach you. Raise your tongue and go he-llo. Come on, come on, he-llo. You can do it, just believe in yourself! He-llo!"

Not the famous you-must-be-a-halfwit look on Sasuke! That's unheard of!

Sakura stepped forward and grabbed Sasuke's jaw, trying to open it and form the syllables 'he' and 'lo'. Sasuke slapped her hand away and glared at her.

"Oh, this is hopeless!" she said, throwing her hands up in the air.

"I know how to talk, Sakura."

"You do?!" Sakura displayed mock amazement, "Then why didn't you say so?"

Yes, that's right, Sasuke was silent.

"You know Sasuke, sometimes talking can be enjoyable, even make you feel better! Now I'm actually being serious when I say this. It's not just something people do to coordinate with each other. It's always better to let something out by talking than bottling it up inside. I know this notion is completely new to you, and you might not be ready to start talking by the dozen, but I want you to promise me that if you ever feel that you actually want to talk about anything, that you won't be afraid to talk to me, or you won't suppress your wish just because of some stupid pride issue you may have. Can you do that?"

She was looking at him so earnestly. He looked away. He didn't like looking at her when she was like that. What could he do except say yes? In a way he supposed she was actually right, but doing what she was saying wasn't exactly going to help him achieve his goal. But he gave in anyway, deciding he would deal with whatever consequences would arise out of this later.

"Fine. I promise." he said quite gruffly.

"Yay!" Sakura cheered as she enveloped, or not quite, considering her size as opposed to his, Sasuke in a hug. "Great. So, lesson 1 complete. Now it's time for lesson 2.

"You have actually smiled a couple of times in the last few days, and almost sort of laughed only this morning, I recall. However, we need this event to become more common than the amount of times of year that Orochimaru doesn't stink, so lesson 2, will be laughter.

"Every time you find something funny, or are having fun, disobey what has become your natural instinct to imitate a statue, and allow yourself to laugh! Trust me, it's worth it. Laughing is pretty fun on its own, and though I don't want you walking around this city laughing like a maniac, I really would recommend the outlet of laughter. It is part of your natural make-up and it is not good to suppress it. Ok, I have seen that you actually know how to laugh, so lets try it. Go ha ha ha!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and shook his head to himself at Sakura.

"Come on! I know you know how to do it! It's just ha ha ha! Simple!"

"Sakura, I'm not going to degrade myself."

"Ahh, that leads me to lesson number 3. Enjoy yourself! Don't have such a big issue with 'degrading yourself' as you call it. After all, it's only me watching! It's not like there's anything to be scared of! Oh!" Sakura said, as if realising something, "Is that what it is? You're afraid of embarrassing yourself?"

Sasuke's look could only imply that Sakura was an idiot.

"I'm not _afraid_, Sakura."

"You must be! Why else would you care? You're a scaredy-cat on the inside after all!"

"I'm _not_ a scaredy-cat."

"Yes you are!"

"I am _not_."

"You _so_ are!"

"I am _not_."

"You totally are!"

"I said, I am _not_."

"Yes, you are! Oh forget it, you're even more stubborn than me. It doesn't really matter, the point is that you have to get over whatever fear or whatever-"

"I told you I'm not afraid."

"Ok fine, yeah yeah whatever, the point is, you need to start enjoying yourself, and this is how you do it."

She grabbed him and pulled him down to the floor and started to roll around, laughing. Soon enough, Sasuke was too, and they engaged in fresh antics, involving several snowball fights, and Sasuke teaching Sakura a jutsu to make an exact sculpture of both of them using the snow.

After much experimentation with this, including making one of Orochimaru picking his nose, Sasuke noticed that the sky was growing dark.

"Sakura." he said, seriously, "We should go in soon."

Sakura noted the darkness of the sky and nodded.

"You're right. Before we go we should get rid of that one-"

She signalled to the one of Orochimaru picking his nose.

"-because I doubt he's going to be happy if he sees it."

Sasuke nodded, before waving his hand in the air, causing the sculpture to disintegrate into snow.

Sakura simply sighed.

"You do such cool stuff it doesn't even surprise me any more." she said shaking her head as she walked towards the door. "Why can't I do any of that stuff?" she continued, pouting.

Sasuke shook his head to himself with a one sided smile. His jutsus might surprise her now and then, but she truly never failed to surprise him.

As they walked down the corridor to their quarters, Sakura hummed, while Sasuke thought of the person he thought of as Old Sakura.

She had been so irritating. Always hindering him, pestering him, trying to righteously do what was best for him. She had been such a know-it-all, but when it came to application of her knowledge in battle, she was practically useless.

What had happened? Why had she changed so much since she lost her memory? Had it really been experience which had caused her to be the way she was before she lost her memory? If so, did it mean experience was going to turn her back into Old Sakura? He sincerely hoped not. He vastly preferred New Sakura to Old Sakura. She did not hinder or pester him, or expect anything from him. She could actually make herself useful on the field. Most of all, she was so strange and unique. Sasuke had never met anyone like her. Whatever she did, she succeeded in brightening up his day, and did not irritate him, which was more than he could say for Old Sakura. Whatever happened, he wanted her to stay this way.

They had reached their doors while Sasuke's thoughts went along this train, and Sakura waved good night to him before entering her room, still humming.

At the memory of Sakura's room, Sasuke's pedantically tidy side had an idea.

He followed her into her room before she could shut the door.

"Yes?" Sakura asked a little surprised.

"Well, I just wanted to… thank you for what you taught me today."

Sakura raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Whether or not it was done in a jokey spirit, I think it was actually a valuable lesson, and, if I can, I will try to use it."

"Wow!" Sakura said, "Never thought I'd actually get through to you!"

"Well, you did, and in return I want to do something for you."

"What?" asked Sakura, confused by now.

"I want to help you with this." he said, waving at her room.

Sakura looked around, getting more confused by the minute.

"I mean your room. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's actually a horrible mess, and I think I can help you tidy it up."

Sakura smiled remembering Sasuke's permanently spotless room.

"Ok, cool!" She jumped onto her bed and put her hands behind her head.

Sasuke looked at her questioningly.

"Well aren't you going to clean up?" she asked, in mock innocence.

"Ha ha, very funny." Sasuke said sarcastically. "Now get up."

Sakura stuck her tongue out at him and leapt up.

"Ok, firstly, pick all those robes up and put them in your wardrobe." He then noticed one which was considerably bigger than the rest at his feet and picked it up, smiling, as memories of Sakura flailing around in it returned.

Sakura saw it too, and smiled.

"I'll take this one back. But get on with your job." The fanatical Sasuke couldn't wait for this room to look as if it was unlived in.

Once Sakura had dealt with the robes, he turned to the food, as he wrinkled his nose.

"Almost as bad as Orochimaru."

"That's impossible, Sasuke."

They both shuddered at the thought of Orochimaru anywhere near them, before Sasuke returned to his senses, and waved his hand at the trays, causing them to disappear.

"What did you do with them?" Sakura asked.

"They'll be somewhere in the middle of the desert."

Sakura rolled her eyes, and remarked,

"Forever showing off."

Sasuke stood back and looked at the room. It was satisfying, except…

"Sakura, why is there a hole in your wall?"

"I… was annoyed once."

That was enough explanation for Sasuke, and his familiar one-sided smile broke out, accompanied by the customary shake of the head.

"Well, there's nothing I can do about that, so good night."

"Good night, Sasuke."

"Oh, and-" she added when he was half-way out of the door, "Thank you."

He shut the door behind him and smiled.


	9. A beautiful sky and a bizarre occurence

Sasuke tossed in his bed. He couldn't sleep. What was it just bothering him, not allowing him to rest? He turned to one side and firmly closed his eyes, determined to get to sleep.

But it was no use. He acknowledged defeat and lifted himself off his bed. He decided that going outside might clear his head. He moved out of his room and walked down the corridor in the direction of the door. The thought of fresh air filled him with joy, or more like unexpressed joy leaked through the cracks of his hard personality. He felt oppressed inside the walls and dark corridors of the complex, and couldn't wait to be outside.

However, he didn't even bother hurrying as he approached the door that spelled freedom. He reached it and slid it open and exited, to find that he was not the first to have had the idea of going outside.

At the edge of the crater that he enlarged every day sat Sakura, her knees tucked up to her chin, her short pink hair blowing in the breeze, as she looked up at the stars with an awed but still smiling expression.

Sasuke wondered if he should return and leave Sakura to herself, but she turned to see him, and exclaimed,

"Sasuke!" she laughed as she said, "Looks like I'm not the only one who felt it was a bit stuffy in there."

She patted the earth beside her. He came forward and sat down beside. She returned to star gazing, and he joined her.

The stars were truly amazing that night. They tore threw the blanket of night like diamonds on an endless sheet of darkness. The sky was littered with scores of them, lighting the night sky and producing a private light show for Sasuke and Sakura. In the midst of it all was the full moon, the centre, the climax of the story told by the stars.

It was Sakura, Sasuke thought. And the sky around it was her life. Always bright, full of surprises and light, never boring. He thought of his own life. The sky would have to be totally black to reflect that. A new moon, the opposite of this. Except, there would be one star, bursting through the darkness like a stain on a pure white sheet. Sakura, of course.

She was the one to break the silence. It couldn't be classified as 'breaking the ice' – the silence had been a comfortable, companionable silence, not an awkward one. They had both felt perfectly suited to the silence, but Sakura wanted to ask Sasuke something, and she knew that this was the right time.

"How long have I been here, Sasuke?"

Sasuke turned to her, slightly surprised.

"About a month and a half."

"Is that a long time?"

"Not really. It depends on what you consider a long time."

"Well, I've got to know myself and everyone around me a bit better, and I've got certain doubts about what I've been told about my past. I know you can't enlighten me, and I'm not asking you to, but, for instance, you know the way Orochimaru is supposed to be my best friend? Well, I somehow don't think that what I feel towards Orochimaru is what I'm supposed to feel for a best friend."

"Well, _there_'s a shock." Sasuke muttered.

"I mean," she continued, "if I had to say someone was my best friend, I'd say it was you."

Sasuke's head spun around to face her. She was looking at him with that earnest expression he really hated. The one he hated because, though he would never admit it even to himself, he really loved it.

"I know I haven't known you for very long, I definitely feel you're pretty much the only person around here who I can trust. And more than that, I do enjoy your company, despite its similarity to the company of a brick. I think you really are my best friend, not just some random person who I happen to be stuck with. Despite our not too great start, despite the fact you act like a machine, and despite everything else, I really do think you are my best friend."

She sat looking at him, without changing her expression. After a couple of seconds he realised she was expecting a response, and said,

"Oh, yeah, um, right, thank you."

She rolled her eyes and playfully punched him in the arm, which actually hurt enough to make him flinch, which wasn't an everyday happening. Her eyes widened as she remembered that she was apparently abnormally strong, and had probably caused him considerable pain in that small gesture.

"Sorry! Forgot."

It was Sasuke's turn to roll his eyes.

They sat for a few minutes, continuing to stare at the stars, while Sasuke digested what Sakura had told him.

"Sasuke?" Sakura said, "I think I'll go inside now."

Sasuke came out of his trance and replied,

"Oh! Yes, right. I will too."

They returned to the entrance to the complex and began to walk down the corridor side by side, as they had done every day for the last month and a half.

Best friend? Was Sakura his friend? Sasuke supposed she was. But was this a good thing? He doubted it. Wasn't it just another bond to tie him down? But what was he supposed to do? He was basically stuck with her, and he knew he wouldn't just be able to start distancing himself from her from now on.

They reached their respective rooms, and waved good night to each other as was customary.

However, Sasuke found that his worries about his 'friendship' did not trouble him much, and he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep almost immediately.

Sakura was not as lucky.

_She was lost. It was dark all around her. She couldn't see anything, except a small pinpoint of red light far away in the distance. She began to head towards it. Maybe it meant other people. The size of the light increased as she went on. But, soon she found it was growing huge. It was obscuring her vision of everything, engulfing her. _

_A colossal, deafening, thunderous roar shook her world, causing her to fall to her knees._

_Then she felt the pain in her arm. It throbbed and throbbed, with several sudden bursts of pain. What was it? It burned so much! She wasn't sure if she could bear this any longer. If it kept aching, she might just have to cut off her arm._

She jolted awake, gasping and drenched with sweat. But it was still there! It was all around her! She could see it, mixed with the scenery of her room. That blinding, burning red light, laden with incredible power.

And her arm! Oh, it ached so much. She couldn't take it.

She felt a burst of adrenaline, and stumbled off her bed and out of her room, making straight across the corridor. She burst into Sasuke's, but then the adrenaline left, leaving her alone with the pain once more. She sank to her knees and whimpered,

"Sasuke…"

Sasuke was a light sleeper. As a ninja, he had to be. So, when he felt the whisper of 'Sasuke' creeping into his dark, calm sleep, he jolted awake. The sight that greeted him was Sakura, kneeling on the floor, her face burdened with extreme pain, as she clutched her arm.

As she looked up at him, he saw her eyes heavy and dull, with pain flowing as the undercurrent to their expression.

"Please help me…"

He was at once on his knees staring into her eyes. He couldn't sense anything immediately wrong, so he activated his sharingan. What he saw astounded him. He could feel the raw power throbbing threw his veins, a course, red chakra, more powerful than anything he had ever seen.

And it was radiating from Sakura's arm. He carefully removed her hand, to reveal three gashes, red and raw.

What were they? He didn't remember her obtaining any such injury during their training. But to be so fresh, they couldn't have been scars from old injuries.

But even as these thoughts ran through his head, he felt the power abating. Soon it was totally gone, causing Sakura to slump against him.

What had that been? He couldn't understand what had caused that, or what the strange gashes on Sakura's arm were.

Nevertheless, he could not remain sitting there with Sakura slumped against him, and so lifted her up and transported to her room. He placed her carefully on the bed lying on her side and stood looking at her for a few minutes, still thinking about the starnge events of a few minutes ago, before turning to go.

But a small force pulled him back. He turned to see Sakura's hand clutching his. Confused he peered over her, but saw that her eyes were closed. He tried to carefully detach her small fingers from his own, but to no avail. Suddenly, the hand tugged him over as it returned to her side, still holding his hand with full force. The movement caused him to fall over onto the bed next to her, his arm over her body. He tried to pull his arm away, but he couldn't. He was stuck in that position, and he knew that there was no getting out of it. Slowly, without realising it, after ages of being in that position, he began to relax, and soon enough, he fell asleep, and in that position they remained.

When Sakura awoke, she felt an unfamiliar warmth around her, and felt something in her hand. She looked down to see a larger hand in her own, and she dropped and leapt out of bed in embarrassment. She saw Sasuke lying on her bed.

'How did that happen?' she wondered.

Sasuke, however, had sensed the vanish of the comfortable warmth he had been basking in earlier, and narrowed his eyes, while they were still closed.

"What are you doing in my room, Sasuke?" Sakura asked, slightly nervously.

"It's not morning yet." Sasuke replied, his body clocked honed so finely he could tell the time to the nearest five minutes without ever looking at a clock.

"Yes, but you're in my room, on my bed, so you might want to consider, maybe explaining what you're doing here and then going back to your own room."

"It's your fault I'm here, and I'm not moving. Now get back here. It's cold." he answered, his eyes still closed.

"What?!" asked Sakura incredulously, "Are you crazy? I can't be bothered to find out what you're doing here, but that doesn't mean you can just stay in my bed. I need sleep too. And you actually expect me to come back? I really think you must be crazy-"

In one quick movement, Sasuke put his hand over Sakura's mouth and pulled her back into their original position.

Sakura lay there, stunned for a few minutes. Then a smile spread over her lips, which were still covered by Sasuke's hand, and she relaxed, allowing the blissful warmth, so rarely enjoyed by either of them, to steal over her and wrap her in it.

And there they lay until the morning, sleeping comfortably.

Meanwhile, in a room on the opposite side of the city, a snake-like man sat across from a silver-haired one.

"Did it work?" he asked his spectacled companion, narrowing his already slit-like eyes.

The answer was a one-sided smile, at which the snake himself allowed a sickening smile to spread across his face.

"Excellent. Hmm hmm hmm," he began, "hur hur hur heh heh heh mwa ha ha ha ha…"

He noticed that his companion was not joining him, but instead looking at him with an extremely fake smile.

He signalled to him to join him, and he did so.

"Har har ho ho hadiha MWAHAHAHAHA!" The two strange, strange men, lost in their own little world of evil, maniacal laughter, thought of what they were soon to do with great joy and gusto, and, with even more misguided enthusiasm, the wonderful rewards that would come of it…


	10. Ponderings and a strange conversation

Naruto sat up in bed, gasping, feeling the sweat dripping down his face. He felt really drained and exhausted, feeling none of the usual hyper-activeness or energy. What had just happened? He really wasn't sure.

As he flopped back into his bed, lacking the energy to investigate, he remembered the bizarre, totally unprecedented dream he had been experiencing before waking. He had been in a familiar, dark cavern, facing a familiar, large gate. Behind it he could feel the ominous presence and the astronomically powerful chakra looming.

Nothing had happened for a while. It had not moved, and neither had he. Then suddenly, he felt the proportions of everything around him change, and the gate seemed to move backwards. He was confused, and the gate seemed to accelerate away from him the longer he waited.

A sudden impulse had driven him forward, and he had begun running towards the gate, but it never seemed to get any closer. He had run for a long time, stretching as far as he could towards the gate, but to no use.

Then, in a flash, all went dark, and he felt himself plummet downwards, unable to sense anything around him, and he woke up.

'Weird.' Naruto thought, but at the moment, despite the sun's rays having begun to filter into his room, he was simply too tired to try and find out what had happened to him or do anything about it.

He fell back into sleep very quickly, and this time he dreamt he was back in the cavern, but this time, when he walked over to the gates, they did not move, and he was able to place his hand on one of the bars.

Far away, on a piece of land with relief similar to that of a desert, a pink-haired girl stared perplexedly down onto the body of a deer. Above her right shoulder, looking down, stood a man with silver haired and glasses which were currently reflecting the light and hiding his eyes. To his far left, balancing on a tree, with an expression barely concealing extreme boredom, was a boy with pale, smooth skin, dark, unreadable eyes, and absurdly cut hair which was tinted a dark blue. His head was tilted backwards as he examined the clear, blue sky, and his collarbone jutted out of his neck, looking slightly strange.

The girl took a deep breath in, and then sighed. What was she supposed to do? It was so close to death she might as well call it that. But she was expected to 'bring it back to life'. Maybe she could…

Her mind became immersed in the world of medical technicalities. She tentatively leaned forward, ready to try out any idea, knowing that if she left it too long, it would die and she would fail. She performed a hand seal and lent over the deer, focussing her chakra on its inter-vertebral pads and the cartilage and ligaments around its pelvic girdle. She found that though it did improve its body's condition, it would not prevent it from dying.

Then it struck her. Of course! How could she have been so retarded? She knew it wasn't the heart or lungs – she had checked those first, them being the most obvious areas where fatal problems could occur. She had also given a passing glance over the brain, it also being quite obvious. But she had forgotten the spinal cord! Of course, she had checked it over roughly, but not in a detailed enough manner, obviously, and it was the only place left where something this lethal could have occurred.

She was right, of course. She managed to fix the damaged spinal cord using her chakra, but it was quite tiring, and after she had completed the feat, she sat back, breathing deeply, with a few beads of sweat developing at the top of her forehead.

"Excellent work, Sakura!" she heard Kabuto exclaim. "You have been presented with a very difficult task, and really risen up to the challenge! Congratulations."

He smiled his signature cheesy smile, and Sakura smiled happily back at him. He then turned to Sasuke.

"Now, Sasuke, it is time for your challenge. Go to the sparring grounds. Orochimaru has arranged a special opponent for you. Sakura, you may return to your room and entertain yourself for a while."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. During Sakura's challenge, he'd had to sit around and watch, but during his challenge, she was simply allowed to return to her room? That was just unfair.

However, he didn't really care, and returned Sakura's wave, before he transported to the sparring ground, disappearing at the exact same time as Kabuto.

Sakura remained where she had been stood, and began walking back towards the door that would lead her inside, and then down the corridor to her room, wondering why nobody would ever teach her to transport, and deciding that it really wasn't just.

When she reached her room, she reached out a hand to open the door, but then paused and decided not to. What was the point? She'd just be sitting by herself doing nothing. Instead, she went to Tayuya's door. Maybe she could do something with her; boring and uncomfortable as Sakura was in her company, it was better than being alone. She opened the door, not even bothering to knock, to find the room empty.

She frowned. Why was Tayuya never here? She had tried paying her a visit a few times in that last month and a half, and she never seemed to be there. Sometimes Sakura thought that it wasn't even her room. She shook her head, and decided to carry on walking down the corridor to the meeting hall. Tayuya might be there or somebody else, hopefully more interesting. She had been there a few times since the first day she could remember, due to large feasts Orochimaru sometimes randomly organised, allowing her to meet some of the people living in the city, and get to know them.

However, very strangely, when she entered the meeting hall, she found it empty, devoid of all the people who normally lingered around in it.

She bit her lip, unsure of what to do. However, after spotting a small door across the hall, precisely parallel to the one she had come through, it did not take her long to decide. She would just go exploring.

She walked over to the door, excitement welling up inside her, with a small edge of fear which she managed to push away.

Once past the door, she found herself in a corridor which looked exactly the same as the one she knew was on the other side of the meeting hall. She walked along it, and soon, arrived at some doors, which looked exactly the same as the ones leading to her own, Sasuke's and Tayuya's bedroom. She hovered near them for a few minutes, dying to go inside, but prudence preventing her.

Eventually, she managed to quash her curiosity and carried on down the corridor. After a while, where on the other side of the meeting hall a door leading to the outside world lay, Sakura reached another set of doors like the ones she had just seen. This time, curiosity got the better of her, and she reached out towards one of the doors, her heart thudding against her chest.

Suddenly, she heard a strange noise. A click-clack-clop, as she saw a serving man, pushing a trolley covered with food emitting most delicious fragrances approaching her. When he saw her, his eyes widened.

"Sa-Sakura-san?" he stammered, "What are you doing here?"

His eyes followed her arm to the door, and he reached out, removing it.

"No no, Sakura-san, you must not do that! Orochimaru-sama will be very angry! You should go back to your room."

His eyes sneaked furtively around him.

"Y-Yes, I was just lost." she said, turning around and walking back towards the meeting hall. When she turned, she saw him gazing after her.

However, when she reached the first set of doors, she turned back, and stealthily stole up to where she had been before. The trolley, embellished with a white table cloth, was still there, whilst the man had disappeared. On impulse, she dived under the table cloth, and crouched on the bar supporting the bottom of the trolley, disguising her chakra so that he would not sense her presence upon return.

After what seemed like hours, but probably was minutes, she heard muffled voices grow louder, and then the trolley began to move, going click-clack-clop. After some time of steady rhythmic moving, accompanied by many sudden jolts and turns which had almost shaken Sakura off the trolley, she heard the grind of a door opening, and they entered the company of voices, and reached a halt once more.

"Why, thank you." she heard an all too familiar, slimy voice say. She then heard a pause, followed by footsteps, and the grind produced by the door. She guessed that the serving man had probably left the trolley with Orochimaru.

"Mmmm." she heard in a snake's voice. "Come Kabuto, eat."

"Thank you." So Kabuto was here as well. She heard the wet sound of a tongue, almost definitely Orochimaru's, slapping around his mouth.

"So now that we know that it will work," she heard Orochimaru speak, his voice muffled by the food in his mouth, "when can we perform the deed?"

"Well," she heard Kabuto clear his throat, "she needs to do some of it herself – that is, of course, why we have been training her for this last month and a half – and I think she is almost ready, but we should another fortnight, or at least a week, just to be on the safe side."

He paused for a moment.

"Of course, we cannot be sure if Tsunade herself is also aware of this, and even if she isn't, how important she holds the girl, as she always was an emotional woman, so we should do it as soon as possible, but I think a fortnight should be perfect-"

"And the boy?" Orochimaru cut in, sounding impatient, "There is absolutely no need for him?"

"Not at all." Kabuto replied confidently.

"Will he die? Or simply be much, much weaker?"

"Of that, I can't be sure," Kabuto responded, "but it is not of any real consequence, is it?"

"I suppose not." Orochimaru mused.

Sakura heard a long pause.

"A fortnight it is, then." she heard Orochimaru say, more evilly than she thought she'd ever heard him say anything.

Almost instantly, she heard the door grind open, and the trolley begun to move. In the time it was still moving, Sakura thought about what she had just heard. What did it mean? She supposed she must be the girl they were talking about, unless there was another girl here they had been training for the last month and a half. What was it that was going to happen in a fortnight? What was it that she was going to do? And who was the boy that they were talking about? The one who might die? Was it Sasuke? She was extremely confused, and really didn't know what to make of everything she had just heard.

After a while, she realised that the trolley had stopped moving some time ago, and she cautiously stepped out of it. She found herself alone, but in an area of the city she had never seen before. She sighed, deciding she would have to walk around until someone found her and told her where to go, and she began to wander.

Meanwhile, Sasuke had finished his training, and had to come to a special area of the city to be healed, after an exhilarating but challenging battle. He lacked the energy to transport, and simply headed towards his quarters on foot. He relived the moments of the battle in his mind, until, suddenly he bumped into a small form, and looked down to see Sakura, who looked at to see him. They stared at each other for a few seconds before simultaneously saying:

"Sakura? What are you doing here?"

and,

"Sasuke?! What are you doing here?"

Sakura decided to go first, and as Sasuke directed her towards their chambers, she explained the events of the afternoon to every last detail.

Nothing she said made sense to Sasuke, and when she asked him if he knew what any of it meant, she was met with silence.

He had no idea who or what they had been talking about, and when they reached their chambers, Sasuke followed Sakura into hers, and sat down on her bed as she did, both of them trying to make sense out of the conversation Sakura had overheard.

In a village far away, a blonde haired woman had just smashed a fist through the fifth desk that day.

"You _WHAT_?"

The spiky haired blond across from her winced, and repeated what he had just said.

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no! I'm going to have to cancel all the plans – SHIZUNE!" she shouted. When her dark haired companion entered she said, "Summon all the shinobi we were going to incorporate in the original plan, regardless of what they are doing now, and tell them we are going to leave in half an hour. This is an _emergency_, and the fate of Konoha, and possibly the whole world, relies on it. You, help her." she pointed towards the spiky haired blond.

When they nodded and exited, scared, but prepared to be efficient, Tsunade sighed and leant back in her chair. She knew this was much too soon, but there was nothing else to be done. She could only hope it would work.


	11. An attack and a successful rescue

Sasuke lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling, absolutely still. Though he looked as calm and unperturbed as usual, inside him, turmoil was reigning.

He had known from the start that Orochimaru had been planning something from the start – why else would he have brought Sakura of all people here? And he knew that last night had had something to do with whatever it was that snake was planning.

It was all very strange. Sasuke had never experienced something that vast and powerful. What had happened? It had definitely been truly bizarre.

And after what Sakura had reported, he was positive that it hadn't been a freak occurrence. The snake definitely had something to do with it.

However, Sasuke couldn't reach any conclusion with so little evidence, and continued pondering late into the night.

Until, something loud rang through his ears.

He tensed. It was a siren, wailing loud and clear. For a minute he lay immobilised, before transporting without even changing position. The next millisecond, he was in Sakura's room. She was sitting up in her bed, looking bewildered, as Sasuke had expected.

Orochimaru's instructions had always been immediately transport to the meeting hall, but he knew that Sakura wouldn't be able to do this alone, and he really doubted that Tayuya actually ever spent any time in her 'room', leaving Sasuke the only one who could help her.

Unless Orochimaru had actually engineered this alarm, Sasuke was sure he would have no provisions for Sakura to reach the meeting hall, and Sasuke couldn't just leave her here, not knowing what to do.

Even if Orochimaru had planned this alarm, Sasuke had no second thoughts about foiling any of his evil plans. He pulled her out of her bed and, clasping her, transported to the meeting hall.

It was full of people already. Sasuke stepped away from the stunned Sakura and turned to the podium at the front. Orochimaru, Kabuto and the Sound 5 stood in a circle. As Sasuke watched, Orochimaru turned towards them, and he saw his face angered, and tinted with worry, and guessed that this alarm had not been part of his plans.

When he caught sight of Sasuke and Sakura, his eyes widened as if he had just remembered them. He quickly turned back to Kabuto and the Sound 5 and spoke for another couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, Sakura caught hold of Sasuke's shoulder and spun him around.

"What the hell is happening?"

Sasuke simply ignored her and turned back towards the podium, to come face to face with Orochimaru, smiling a freakishly wide smile.

"You two might be wondering what is happening. We are, in fact, under attack, by some very, very bad people." He glanced briefly at Sasuke, but Sasuke did not miss the meaning in that glance. "I don't want _either_-" he stressed the word, "-of you in contact with them, so I want you Sasuke-kun, to take Sakura-chan to the stronghold, and remain there until someone comes to fetch you when the coast is clear. All clear?" Sakura nodded unsurely, whilst Sasuke did not move. "Sakura-chan, Tayuya will now take you to the kitchens and provide you with some food, as you may have to spend quite a long time in the stronghold. Sasuke-kun and I will wait here, and when you return, you shall both go to the stronghold."

Sakura nodded and followed Tayuya, who had just appeared beside her, to the door across the meeting hall.

As soon as they disappeared, Orochimaru's smile did likewise. He came uncomfortably close to Sasuke, and Sasuke had to try hard to maintain his usual emotionless exterior and not shrink away.

"Let me get this clear." he hissed, the draught of foul air forcing Sasuke to actually blink. "I want you both to remain in the stronghold for the _entire_ time required. I will not tolerate anything else. If she tries to get out, do whatever you need to stop her. And don't even try to get out yourself, unless death sounds like a good prospect to you. _All clear_?" He repeated his question of a few minutes ago, except this time, laden with malice.

Sasuke gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head, only too eager for Orochimaru to move away.

"Good." Orochimaru said and disappeared, reappearing at the podium the same second. At the same time, Sakura and Tayuya came through the door, Sakura holding two large bags containing food, Sasuke assumed. When they reached him, Tayuya transported to the podium, waving at them.

Orochimaru began to address the people with instructions on what to do, so Sasuke simply narrowed his eyes, grabbed Sakura, and transported.

They reappeared in a pitch black room where, for a second, neither of them could see anything. After a few seconds for Sasuke, and a few minutes for Sakura, their eyes adjusted. They could make out a bare cell with no doors or windows.

Sakura sat down against the wall.

"Well, guess we're stuck here." she said nonchalantly.

Her nonchalance lasted precisely half an hour before she began raving and ranting.

"What is up with this place? Is there absolutely nothing to do? Are we expected to just sit here, doing nothing? This is so boring! I might have to kill myself." She began banging her head against the wall.

"Stop, Sakura." Sasuke commanded, afraid she would actually do herself some real damage.

"Well, there's nothing better to do here." she said defiantly, before slumping against the wall and groaning. "Sasuke, how can you just stand there, for hours, without moving at all?"

It was true. He had not moved at all since their arrival; simply stood in the same position.

"It's kind of freaking me out." Sakura said. Sasuke didn't move. Surprise surprise.

After a while, he thought she must have fallen asleep, as she didn't move either. Well, _he_ could control himself. He didn't have to move to entertain himself. In fact, he didn't even need entertainment. He was just fine.

However, she woke up soon, and after stretching and gathering her surroundings, she remembered where she was and groaned.

"Oh, damn. Stuck in the stronghold." She said, grimacing. Sasuke saw her head turn upwards towards him, and then it stopped moving for a while. Sasuke got the impression that she was staring at him, but in this poor, almost non-existent light, he couldn't really tell. "You _still_ haven't moved?" she asked incredulously. And, yes, he didn't move. She just shook her head and turned away.

She managed to control herself for another impressive three and a half hours, muttering strange things and laughing to herself, giving Sasuke the impression that she was crazy, before leaping up and shouting,

"That's it! I'm out of here."

Sasuke didn't even bother trying to restrain her.

"How do you plan to get out of here?" he asked uninterestedly.

But he had underestimated her. She walked into the centre of the cell, and then jumped upwards, her fist aiming up, smashing the ceiling of the cell and allowing daylight to flood in. She fell back down to the ground with a light thud, and was about to leap up once again, but Sasuke had gathered his wits by now, and quickly grabbed her hand.

"No, Sakura. We have to stay here."

"No, Sasuke! Forget about that bastard Orochimaru. Who cares about him? This is our chance to escape and be free! He'll be so caught up in defending the city, that he won't notice us escaping!"

Sasuke paused a minute, entreated by Sakura's beseeching eyes, before coming back to his senses and shaking his head.

"No, Sakura. We have nowhere to go."

"Well, we'll find somewhere!"

"No, Sakura."

She paused for a second, before saying bitterly,

"Fine." And then more softly, "I'm sorry."

Sasuke frowned, confused, wondering why she was sorry, before her fist came crashing down on his arm, possibly breaking it, but in any case forcing him to let go of her hand.

In an instant, she had leapt out of the hole she had created and was gone.

Sasuke simply stood there, stunned. If this had been a fight situation, he would have been out of the hole and chasing after her. But it was not, and Sasuke just couldn't bring himself to believe that Sakura had just wilfully hit him that forcefully and purposefully. She had never done that before. Not in the last month and a half, or ever before that.

He couldn't believe it.

But he also had a good recovery time, and soon, he was out of the hole, looking around. He was on the edge of a forest. To his left was the beginning of the desert he knew covered the city, and to his right was a large forest. Sakura was nowhere to be seen, so he searched for her chakra, and soon found it, to the desert side. He transported to the area he could sense it in, and found there, Sakura, with two other people whose chakra had been disguised beforehand. Sasuke's eyes widened when he saw their identities – one had blue-black hair similar to his own, except not with the same style, and emotionless black eyes, and the other had spiky blond hair and blue eyes, which were currently closed.

Sakura was leaning over the blond, who was lying unconscious on the ground, whilst the other stood above them, looking down. None of them had noticed him yet.

However as Sasuke stood there, the dark-haired one turned. His eyes widened and he gasped as he caught sight of Sasuke. Sakura turned upon his gasp, but did not exhibit much surprise.

"Sasuke," breathed Sai. "Please. Naruto is dying. Sakura needs to heal him."

Sasuke paused.

"Sasuke, I don't care what you say, I'm going to heal Naruto and there's nothing you can do to stop me." Sakura had stood up, and looked defiantly at Sasuke.

"No, Sakura." Sasuke was striding forward by now. "You don't even know these people – what makes you so willing to trust them?"

"I remember them. I don't remember who they are, but I definitely remember their faces, vaguely. And he knew my name." She gestured towards Sai.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Naruto he could understand – she had spent her whole life with him. But why would she remember Sai, someone she had only met two years previously, when she hadn't remembered him, whom she had known her whole life?

It didn't really matter though. He just needed to get her back to the stronghold.

"Come on, Sakura." He reached out for her, but she struck his hand away, knowing that if he got a hold of her, he could transport.

"No, Sasuke!" she said furiously. "How can you be so… inhuman? If you're going to be cruel and dispassionate, you can count me out of your plans. I thought you had come a long way since we first met. Well, obviously I was wrong. The Sasuke I thought I knew would never leave a person dying just so he could obey a stupid snake's orders. And if that wasn't the real you, I want nothing to do with you."

She was almost hyperventilating, she was so angry. Sasuke simply stood there, unable to reply, mostly because he was unable to believe what he had just heard. Had _Sakura_ just talked to him like that? Had she really thought of him that way? Did he deserve it? What should he do now? Try and keep her respect? Or was it not important enough? All these questions ran through his head in what seemed like an eternity, but was really a few seconds. Then, finally, he spoke, low and gruff.

"Hurry up. He's dying."

A smile broke out on Sakura's face, and she hugged him, before turning back to Naruto, while Sai stood there confused as usual as to the emotions he had just witnessed.

Sasuke turned to him.

"What is going on?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

"Tsunade has sent us to recover Sakura."

"Are you alone?"

"No – many more of us are present, currently fighting Orochimaru and his minions. We were supposed to look for you, but Naruto, as usual, jumped straight into battle with Orochimaru himself. He was injured, and I managed to escape with him before Orochimaru could injure him further."

"Sa-Sakura-chan?" Naruto's wobbly voice spelled out.

Sakura nodded, smiling at the finally conscious Naruto.

"Sakura-chan! I've found you! Sai, I've found Sakura-chan!"

Sai looked at him as if he was an idiot, and he grinned sheepishly when he understood what had happened.

"You healed me?" he asked Sakura, while struggling to sit up.

Sakura nodded.

"Thank-oi!" Naruto's eyes widened as he caught sight of Sasuke who had beforehand been obscured from vision by Sakura. "Teme!"

Sakura turned to look at Sasuke.

"You guys know each other?"

Sasuke smirked.

"Long time no see, dobe."

Naruto jumped up to try and thump Sasuke on the head, while Sasuke just dodged easily.

"Hey! No fair! I'm injured!" he whined.

Sasuke simply smirked, and Sakura laughed at the exchange between the two.

But Sai, not comprehending the emotions as usual, said urgently,

"We must hurry before Orochimaru finds us. Naruto, take Sakura to our camp in the woods – I will go and inform the others that they can retreat and return to the woods."

Naruto nodded, Sai's urgency creeping over him.

But Sasuke frowned. What was his part in all this? Was he supposed to just return to the stronghold and wait for Orochimaru to come and kill him?

Sakura sensed Sasuke's tension and said,

"If you take me, Sasuke's coming too."

Sasuke and Naruto both frowned.

"That's not feasible, Sakura." Sasuke said.

"Well, what else are you going to do? I'm not going back to the stronghold, and I don't know how happy Orochimaru's going to be when he finds you sitting by yourself in a broken stronghold with me nowhere to be seen."

She had a point. Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"Fine."

Naruto's eyes widened.

"Alright, that's fine. Go Naruto. I'm going to the others." Sai said before vanishing.

Naruto turned towards the forest and began leaping through the trees, followed by Sasuke and Sakura.

"Dobe, why don't we just transport?"

"Our fortification is protected from transportation. You can only get there manually."

They carried on leaping through the trees.

Whilst they were doing so, Naruto looked sidelong at Sasuke.

"You know, teme, you'd never have agreed to this before. Or shown any of us any mercy. You've changed." Sakura turned towards him, whilst Sasuke looked cuttingly at him. "For the better." he added as an afterthought.

Sasuke thought about it. It was true. There was no way he'd have let this happen even a month ago.

What had happened to him? He wondered.

Or, more aptly, what had she done to him?


	12. New people and a weird challenge

Sasuke looked up at the sky. He felt a strange sense of déjà-vu. It was almost exactly like the old times.

He was sitting against a tree, looking up at the sky whilst, to his far right sat Naruto and Sakura, cross legged, facing each other, whilst Naruto told Sakura stories of the past while Sakura laughed.

That was the only difference, Sasuke noted. In the past, he would still have been sitting a little apart from the group, never truly fitting in, and Naruto would still have been trying to impress Sakura and make her laugh, but she would not have been listening to him and laughing. She would have been brushing him off and trying to get _his_ attention.

"You really can't remember anything at all from before?" Naruto asked, a little awed.

Sakura shook her head and shrugged, slightly smiling as she remembered Naruto's reaction when she had told him she remembered practically nothing (he had fallen off the branch he had been standing on and passed out).

"It's like an absolutely clean slate. Actually, I can vaguely remember your face, and Sai's, but that's all."

"That's probably because we were with you when you were practically dying. You didn't seem to recognise us back then. You only remembered Orochimaru.

Sakura instinctively wrinkled her nose.

"That's weird, since apparently he wasn't even really my friend."

Naruto shook his head.

"Yeah, he's probably about the furthest away from your friend that's possible."

Sakura nodded. She had not been surprised to hear that Orochimaru had lied, and she shuddered to think of what he might have been planning with her. Everything she had heard of him, especially the way he had captured her, made him seem increasingly evil.

"Dobe." Sasuke spoke for the first time. "Why did Orochimaru go to such lengths to capture Sakura? And why did Tsunade go to such lengths to get her back?"

"I don't know. Only Tsunade knows, and she seemed so angry and frustrated, I didn't think it was wise to ask. We can ask her when we get back to Konoha. Or at least… _we_ can."

He looked meaningfully at Sasuke. Sasuke knew that once in Konoha, he was not going to be greeted with hugs and kisses, but he couldn't be bothered to think that far ahead yet.

"I guess that good things have come from his capture of you." Naruto continued musing. "I mean, we _have_ got you back, and we've even got the teme in to the bargain. And you seem quite different. A lot… happier, and more relaxed then you were before. Well, I guess you were only unhappy because of the teme, anyway." He glared pointedly at Sasuke, who simply said,

"Dobe."

"What do you mean?" asked Sakura, confused.

"You haven't told her?!" Naruto looked at Sasuke accusingly.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and sighed, and still with his back to the duo, slightly hesitantly said,

"You know that girl I told you about? When I told you my story?"

"You mean the one that was on your team and obsessed with you?" Sakura asked.

When telling Sakura his story, Sasuke had covered up her part in it, by simply calling her 'this girl'.

"Yes." Sasuke paused, not quite sure how to phrase what he was about to say.

"Come on, teme, you have to tell her someday!" said Naruto, loud and insensitive as usual.

"Well… that was… kind of… well… you."

Sakura remained in a shocked silence for a few minutes. Then she said,

"Me? Well, that's embarrassing! Well, don't worry Sasuke, that's not me any more, and there's no way I'm going to follow you around any more."

"And you were totally crushed when he left - you could barely get over it!"

"Way to ease the awkwardness." Sasuke muttered.

"Great!" said Naruto, not hearing him. "Now that that's cleared up, let's carry on talking."

Naruto continued to yap, but Sakura was more hesitant, thinking increasingly about the annoying personality she used to possess.

Sasuke sensed this, and the tension that had suddenly entered between them, and he didn't like it.

He leapt off his feet and walked towards the duo.

"Dobe, get lost."

Both Naruto and Sakura looked at him as if he had gone crazy.

"I mean, just for a minute." Sasuke said, amending his sentence.

"No! Why should I? Who knows what you'll do if I'm not here!" Naruto said, obnoxious as ever.

Sasuke glared dangerously at him, which sent him walking slowly and regretfully out of the little clearing that they were in.

"Yes?" Sakura asked, a little nervously.

"You don't need to be shy or anything just because of what I said. I know you're not like that any more, so there's no need to be worried about the past, ok?" Sasuke cut to the chase, as usual.

Sakura smiled up at Sasuke.

"Ok."

A high pitched scream rang through the clearing.

"FOREHEAD!"

Both Sasuke and Sakura turned, startled, to see another obnoxious blonde bursting into the clearing, following the one that had been there a few minutes ago.

Sasuke gave a small shiver at the sound. That annoying voice had haunted him for most of his childhood, with screams of "SASUKE-KUN!"

However, when she entered the clearing and caught sight of him, she stopped in her tracks, her mouth open staring at him. After a few seconds of merely staring, she began to stutter,

"I-It's th-the UCHIHA! Naruto, quickly, it's the Uchiha! Don't let him escape!"

Naruto thumped her on the arm.

"He came with us, fool."

"WHAT????!!!!" she screeched. "He actually agreed to come with you? Whoa. Being with Orochimaru has actually made him nicer! Who'd have though it!"

She walked forward hesitantly, eyeing Sasuke warily. However, when she reached Sakura she let her guard down and enveloped her in a massive hug.

"Missed you, forehead."

"Um… these guys said my name was Sakura." Sakura said a little unsurely.

Ino laughed.

"Yeah, it is, but we're best friends so we call each other rude nicknames. I call you forehead, and you call me Ino-pig."

"You're Ino?" Sakura asked, having heard stories about her from Naruto.

She nodded.

Sakura returned an equally massive hug.

"I've heard lots about you, and you already seem like my best friend."

"So you sort of remember me?" Ino asked.

Sakura shook her head.

"I don't remember anything at all."

"Really? Tsunade said you would almost definitely have lost your memory, but I thought you might remember a little bit."

Sakura shook her head again.

"Well, it's good to have you back anyway." Ino said. "Now, let me go get the others so you can meet them. They're all dying to see you again! We were all on the way here together, but we couldn't transport, so we had to come manually, and I was extra keen to see you, which is why I got here first. And I _might_ have obtained the least injuries." she added under her breath, whistling while Sakura laughed.

She disappeared into the trees. Sasuke turned and began walking in the other direction.

"Where are you going, Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

"Somewhere I can avoid the stares of the 'Leaf crew'."

"When are you coming back?" Sakura asked, confused.

"Soon." He replied briefly before disappearing.

Only a few minutes later, Ino reappeared, followed by a whole troop of people.

"Ok, Sakura, meet Neji." She signalled towards a tall boy with long black hair, and pale, violet coloured eyes. He bowed and nodded in a formal greeting.

"It is good to have you back, Sakura-san."

Sakura smiled and thanked him, not really sure how to act as formally as he was.

"Shikamaru." She gestured towards a boy whose hair was done up in a spiky pony-tail which bore a strong resemblance to a pineapple. His eyes were practically closing, until Ino said his name, when they slightly opened, and he nodded at Sakura, not even bothering to say anything.

Ino thumped him on the arm and reprimanded him for being so rude.

"Troublesome." Sakura heard him mutter under his breath as they moved away.

"Chouji." Ino pointed at a grotesquely fat boy, stuffing chips into his mouth. He waved and smiled and Sakura, whilst still munching on the chips, the sound resonating almost throughout the entire clearing.

Ino rolled her eyes and dragged Sakura to the next nin.

"Kiba." She signalled to a boy wearing a baggy hoody, with a white dog standing on the ground next to him.

He smiled and said,

"Hey, Sakura."

Sakura returned his smile before being pulled away.

"Shino." She gestured to a boy with short spiky black hair wearing a white coat and sunglasses with lenses that seemed almost too small for his eyes.

He nodded rather formally at Sakura. She returned the gesture.

"Tenten." Ino had already walked away, and was now pointing to a girl wearing a pink shirt with large brown eyes and two buns either side of her head.

"Hi!" she said smiling and waving at Sakura.

"Hi!" said Sakura, smiling and waving at her.

They both laughed in unison.

"Hinata." Ino was now signalling to a girl standing nearby with dark, blue-tinted hair and pale eyes similar to those of Neji, the boy that Ino had just introduced Sakura to.

She smiled shyly and stuttered,

"I-it's good t-to see y-you Sakura-ch-chan."

"You too, Hinata!" Sakura said kindly, sensing that she was shy.

"Lee. You might want to shield your eyes." Ino gestured to a boy with large black eyes, black hair cut in a bowl shape, wearing a green jumpsuit. He smiled, and his teeth were so bright that Sakura was almost blinded. Ino had known to shut her eyes beforehand, from past experience.

"I see what you mean." Sakura said under her breath.

"Oh, my youthful Sakura-chan, what a blooming flower of true youthfulness you are! My eyes cannot grasp enough of the youthful youthfulness which radiates from the flower that is you!"

Sakura stared at him for a few minutes, slightly creeped out by his strange behaviour.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it soon." Ino said. "Finally, we have, Kakashi-sensei. Well, actually, he was you, Naruto and Sasuke's sensei." She pointed to a man with spiky, silver hair, wearing a black mask over his face, only revealing one eye.

He closed his one visible eye and his mask creased up in what Sakura thought was a smile, and said,

"Hello, Sakura. It's nice to see you after such a long time."

Sakura smiled back at him.

"Hello, Kakashi-sensei. It's nice to see you for the first time… ever."

They grinned at each other, though Sakura couldn't actually see Kakashi's grin.

At that moment was a rustle in the trees and Sasuke appeared. His eyes narrowed as he saw the meeting and greeting was still taking place.

Every single member of the group stood absolutely still when they saw him. Then chaos began. Neji, Shino and the more efficient nin were at once ready to attack him, whereas Tenten began screaming that Sasuke was here, Ino began to scream that it was ok, and the others just fumbled about in the general commotion.

Sakura saw that Ino needed help, and joined her in shouting at the group that Sasuke was here as a friend and not an enemy, and not to attack him.

Luckily the ones who could have, and would have attacked him and posed a serious threat to him, were the ones with the sharpest hearing, and after hearing what Sakura and Ino were shouting, they paused.

When they had managed to get all the fumblers to quieten down, Ino said,

"Everyone, Sasuke has come willingly as a friend, and not an enemy. He's not going to attack us, he's coming with us, ok?"

General murmurs of "How can we trust him?" and the like followed, but only one person made themselves heard over the rest.

"This cannot be! I know why Sasuke is here! He is here to steal my precious, beloved flower of youth! I know it!"

Everyone had fallen silent and was staring at Lee as if he was an idiot, including Sasuke.

"Well, I shall not let you take her so easily! If you want her, you must win her off me, fair and square! I shall battle you, Sasuke, for Sakura!"

No one spoke, the majority of the population of the clearing sweatdropping like mad.

Sakura stood still, looking slightly freaked out by what was happening.

Sasuke continued to stare at Lee as if he was an idiot.

"Come on, Sasuke! Do not be a coward! If you want Sakura, you must fight me for her!"

Sasuke just stood absolutely still for a few minutes. Then he shook his head and began walking past the group to the collection of tents to the right of the crowd.

"Freak." he muttered, while he was walking.

Everyone began laughing, apart from Lee who stood there, confused as to what Sasuke's response to his challenge had been.

After her initial laughing fits were over, Ino said over the noise,

"Ok, ok, everyone, quiet down, quiet down!" Ino shouted. "Lee's little drama is over, and it's getting quite dark, so let's hit the hay."

Everyone nodded in general agreement, and the party of Leaf nin made their way to the nearby tents, together for the first time in a long time.


	13. Fitting in and a drenched dance

After a good night's sleep in a warm tent in a soft sleeping bag, much more comfort than Sakura had ever before experienced in her memory, she woke up to the sound of Ino's voice, as they were sharing a tent.

This was followed by an actually edible breakfast, something Sakura could not remember experiencing, before the tents were packed up and it was time to move.

They could not simply transport, as the distance was to far and would create too big a drain on their chakra, as well as because Konoha was protected so that you couldn't simply transport into it – you'd have to come through the gate and past the guards.

Every nin had a sack full of belongings, apart from Sakura and Sasuke, who had left the city empty-handed, and they all leapt through the trees carrying this on their backs.

Sakura and Ino took turns at carrying the tent, now rolled and packed up, as did the other pairs of nin who had been sharing.

Sakura and Ino chatted with each other while keeping pace with each other towards the middle of the stream of nin.

Ino told Sakura stories of the past, of how they had argued so much over Sasuke, but also of how good friends they had been before and after he left, while Sakura laughed to hear of all the antics they used to get up to in the past.

Sakura told Ino stories of their time with Orochimaru, while Ino shuddered to consider what her best friend had had to go through, whilst still observationally picking up the way Sakura talked about Sasuke – not adoring and self-pitying as she would have in the past, but more naturally and matter-of-factly, as if she just took it for granted that he was there.

"So you're over Sasuke?" Ino asked.

"Yup, definitely." Sakura said. "To be honest, I don't remember ever even thinking of him that way at all. I was quite surprised to hear that I used to be practically obsessed with him." She looked forward to see Sasuke, near the front of the group, a little distanced from the main stream of people. She shook her head. "Yeah, that's definitely weird."

Ino shrugged, still not really able to believe it, but ready to drop the conversation.

They continued talking as they leapt through the trees, but at the same time Sakura observed the behaviour of the other nin around them, trying to get to know what they were like by studying their behaviour.

Some were very easy to understand – having seen Chouji only for a day, Sakura could already tell that his life's interest was eating, and that that was pretty much all he did in his free time.

Shikamaru was also fairly easy to get – as Sakura looked around to see him lagging at the back of the stream, his eyes practically closed and his mouth forever forming either the syllable 'trou', the syllable 'ble' or the syllable 'some'.

Sakura could already sense that Hinata was a very shy, withdrawn person, and that she needed kindness and understanding to draw her out of her shell, not loud, obnoxious treatment as Naruto seemed to think. Sakura rolled her eyes as she turned to see Naruto and Hinata right behind her, Naruto talking loudly and brashly, while Hinata blushed and shrunk further and further away from him.

Kakashi was simple – Sakura rolled her eyes and shook her head to see him near the back of the stream, his head forever stuck in his porn books.

Naruto was probably the easiest of them all – always loud and obnoxious and talking big, but still very funny and likeable.

Some seemed just like normal people, like Kiba and Tenten, and it relieved Sakura to see that there were at least a few people in the group who were not strikingly weird.

Some simply freaked her out, like Lee, due to his blazing intensity and his talk always centred around youth, and his blindingly bright teeth.

Others mystified her, and however much she tried, she could not seem to understand them, like Neji and Shino, both at the very front of the stream, silent and talking to no one, and Sai, just behind them, equally mystifying.

While all this passed through Sakura's mind, Sasuke was at the front of the stream, leaping alone.

By the conversation he could hear, he could tell that behind him and Sai was Lee, constantly blabbering about Sakura's youth and how his youthful attitude was sure to win her over, while Tenten tried in vain to get him to shut up, and Kiba stood just behind them, laughing at the exchange between them. Behind them, were Sakura and Ino, chatting about their old life in the village, him featuring quite a lot in their conversation. Behind them were Naruto and Hinata, with the usual loud versus shy combination. At the back was Shikamaru continuously saying 'troublesome', with Chouji a little ahead of him, loudly munching chips. Kakashi was the only silent member of the group bar the ones at the front, but Sasuke knew that it must be because he was reading 'Icha Icha Paradise' as usual.

Sasuke could see the only remaining members of the group, Neji and Shino, out of the corner of his eye, travelling on par with him, silently and stealthily.

Shino had always been a bit of a strange one, and Sasuke didn't spare any thoughts on him, but he did wonder about Neji. How strong had he become? Enough to pose him a challenge? He was surely the only one in the group bar Kakashi who even had a chance against him.

Sasuke continued pondering and evaluating not only Neji but the whole group, as well as wondering about what punishment he was going to face once back in Konoha.

The trees carried on for a long time, and however far they travelled, the scenery never seemed to change. It had begun to grow dark, and both Sakura and Sasuke wondered if they were anywhere near a place to settle down, preferably not surrounded by trees on all sides.

The groups of talkers changed, as Tenten got bored of trying to have a sensible conversation with Lee and simply separated herself from him, and Ino ran forward to catch up with Tenten and chat with her leaving Sakura to either join her or choose someone else to have a conversation with.

She chose to catch up with Sasuke who she had not properly spoken to the whole day, and she forced him to slow down a little and move out of the 'alone' group and into the main stream of nin.

"Come on, Sasuke!" she urged, "Don't you want to at least talk to these people? You haven't seen them for ages!"

"No," Sasuke said, "They're all a bunch of losers."

Sakura thumped Sasuke on the arm, actually hurting him, and said,

"Stop being such a loner, Sasuke."

"I don't even know why I came," he said, his mouth creasing into a smirk as he knew this was sure to wind her up, "There was really no point. I mean, what am I going to do with this bunch of losers?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes.

"Fine then! If you think I'm a loser, why don't you just leave?!" she turned around heading towards Ino and Tenten, before Sasuke caught her hand, and they both laughed.

Naruto, bored with the unresponsive Hinata and having seen that Sasuke was talking to Sakura, decided to join the conversation.

"Oi, teme!" he shouted, rushing forward until on par with Sakura and Sasuke. "Isn't this cool? Just Team 7 together again!"

Both Sasuke and Sakura winced.

"Shut up, dobe. Are you trying to deafen us all?"

Naruto glared at Sasuke, while Sakura laughed.

"Are you always this lou-" Sakura fell silent as the group broke through the trees and entered a vast space.

One by one as they entered, they stopped. Before them, rapidly sloping downwards was a green plane of grass and at the bottom of the hill on which they stood, in the crease of the land before it began to rise again, the valley, was a large lake.

It was truly beautiful, and Sakura stood still and silent, stunned by the breath-taking view.

Kakashi, having finally removed his head from his book and noticed that it was almost dark, said,

"We'll camp a little further down the hill."

The main collection of nin, still talking, began walking down the hill, but Sakura stood still.

Sasuke and Naruto began walking down the hill, before noticing that Sakura was not moving, and stopping and turning to look questioningly at her.

She however did not respond, or even look at them, but simply continued staring at the hills.

Then, suddenly, she began running down the hill, her arms spread out. Her expression was that of bliss, as she began twirling around as she ran.

Everyone turned to look at her, but she didn't stop. She carried on twirling, before falling flat on her back into the grass and shutting her eyes with a smile of content.

Expressions varied. Some looked at her as if she was an idiot, others looked slightly bewildered, and others simply looked freaked out.

"Sakura," Sasuke said, "Get up."

Sakura sighed and propped herself up with one arm.

"Aren't you overwhelmed by the beauty of this place?" she asked, sighing.

"No. Now get up." he said, prodding her with his foot.

She slapped his foot away, getting up.

"You're so unappreciative of beauty." she said, shaking her head.

All of the nin, except Neji, Shino, Sai and Sasuke, who just shook his head, with a hint of a smile on his face, laughed, while Sakura, smiling, headed down to where they were.

They began to set up he seven tents in a similar arrangement to last night – Sakura was sharing with Ino again, while Sasuke shared with Naruto, Sai with Kakashi, Hinata with Tenten, Neji with Lee, Kiba with Shino and Shikamaru with Chouji.

They retired after a light meal, and Sakura found that Ino fell asleep very quickly, whereas she didn't. Dying to see the hills once more, even if only the dark outlines would be visible so late at night, she unzipped the entrance to the tent and ventured outside.

A few stars were twinkling in the indigo painted sky. The hills were dark, but she could make out the black shape of the lake below, and she walked down towards it.

She reached the edge and looked down at it. It began very suddenly, not created by a gentle slope. It looked very deep, even around the edges. She removed her foot from her sandal and tested the water. Surprisingly, it was not particularly cold.

"Sakura?"

The voice gave her such a shock, that she turned so abruptly she slipped and fell into the water backwards. In the water, she was disorientated and could not work out which way was up or down. She had been right about its depth though – all around her she could see nothing but black.

Suddenly she felt something clutch her and drag her in some direction. She screamed, opening her mouth, letting air out and water in.

Suddenly, her head broke through the surface, and she gasped, coughing and spluttering. She felt herself being dragged onto land, then someone thumped her back and once all the water was out of her throat, she turned to see Sasuke looking at her, concernedly.

"You ok?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You shocked me back then!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, sorry." he said, slightly sheepishly. "What are you doing down here?"

She shrugged.

"Nothing in particular. You?"

"Nothing in particular." She smiled at his response. He continued, "Shouldn't we go and dry ourselves?"

"I guess."

They began heading up the hill, before a streak of lightning tore the sky apart, and a colossal roar of thunder echoed through the valley.

Sakura screamed.

"Shhh! It's ok, Sakura, it's just thunder and lightning. It happens when there's a storm."

"Oh." she nodded, before realising something. "Does that mean-"

Before she could even finish her sentence, freezing rain began pelting down, soaking them for the second time.

Sakura gasped, her mouth dropping open. Even Sasuke displayed surprise.

They stood, motionless for a few seconds before Sasuke grabbed Sakura's hand, and began running up the hill.

Sakura, however, being a lover of rain, stood still.

"Come on, Sakura!" Sasuke shouted.

But Sakura just pulled Sasuke back down the hill.

"Let's dance!" she said, the foul weather actually lifting her mood.

Sasuke looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"Are you crazy?"

"Maybe!" she said, and dragged Sasuke into a waltz.

Sasuke couldn't help but laugh, which set Sakura off as well.

And they remained like this, waltzing and laughing, until Sakura collapsed on the ground in the early morning, and refused to return to the tents, or let Sasuke return, leaving sunrise to find them both asleep on the rain-soaked grass, drenched to the bone in rainwater.


	14. Humiliation and a difficult battle

When Naruto awoke, he stretched his foot out to prod Sasuke with it, to wake him up. And, he just enjoyed doing it. He found to his surprise, that he was prodding something remarkably soft, and thinking it was Sasuke's stomach, he loudly commented,

"Man, have you put on weight, teme!"

Expecting either verbal or physical abuse, Naruto shut his eyes and prepared himself to flinch. To his astonishment, he received neither, and thinking that Sasuke must be deeply asleep, he kicked the soft thing hard. Yeah, Naruto was never one to beat around the bush.

When he received no response for the second time, he sat up, and saw that Sasuke's sleeping bag was empty, and that that was what he had been prodding.

Astonished that Sasuke had woken up and not bothered to kick him or throw freezing water over him, as he had done the last morning, Naruto clumsily clambered out of his sleeping bag and made his way outside. No one was awake yet, as far as Naruto could see. But then, he noticed two streaks of darkness on the grass far down the hill. He ran down, but as he came closer, he saw that the two streaks were people, and that one had pink hair, and the other raven.

Once he realised who they were he stopped dead.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" he shrieked, making both of them jolt into sitting position. "Teme, what the hell are you doing lying absolutely soaked on the ground, like not even a centimetre away from Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke leapt off his feet, landing far away from Sakura, and ran his hand through his hair, not able to come up with an excuse.

"Um-we both were at the lake, but then when we- um- got tired, we didn't have the energy to walk back up, so we fell asleep on the ground…?" Sasuke tried, knowing himself how unconvincing he sounded.

Both Naruto and Sakura looked at him as if he was an idiot.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm really going to believe that when you both came down to the lake _coincidentally_ at the same time, you both got too tired to walk 50 metres and decided to go to sleep on the ground."

"Y-yes?" Sasuke tried.

"Oh?! Really? Wow, teme, you haven't got much stamina!" Naruto shook his head and began walking up the hill.

Sasuke and Sakura both stared after him.

"Man, is he stupid!" Sakura said, and Sasuke nodded in agreement.

However, they didn't get away as easily as that. Other people were beginning to wake up, and when Naruto loudly explained how he had found them when they were asked why they were so wet, they had to explain themselves to people who wouldn't believe that they decided to sleep on the ground because they were too tired to walk up the hill.

"No, no he's telling the truth about the we both came down to the lake coincidentally at the same time thing." Sakura said to Ino, nodding her head. "I don't know where the we decided to sleep on the ground because we were too tired to walk back up came from, though. That was Sasuke's idea."

"And Naruto fell for it." Ino said looking pityingly at Naruto. "I'm almost not surprised."

Naruto, finally understanding the truth of the situation, said loudly (when did he ever say anything not loudly?),

"Hey! Teme, you lied to me, you bastard!"

Sasuke didn't even bother replying.

"Hey! Teme, you can't ignore me like that!"

"I don't talk to people who can't have a sensible conversation for 30 seconds while actually understanding what I'm saying."

Naruto scratched his head.

"What?"

Sasuke just walked away.

"Anyway, what really happened?" asked Ino, turning away from the boys and back to Sakura.

"I went down to the lake, Sasuke came down too, he surprised me, I fell into the lake, he rescued me, we were heading back up, it started raining, I love rain, so I made him dance with me, then I wanted to stay in the rain, but I was too tired to dance, so I just fell asleep on the ground and forced him to stay with me."

Ino, and the rest of the nin, who had been listening, gaped.

"You were- he was… _dancing_?"

Sakura nodded.

"Oh. My. God." Ino said before screaming, "OH MY GOD! SASUKE WAS DANCING! EVERYBODY, SASUKE WAS DANCING!"

Everyone turned to him.

"Is it true, teme?" Naruto asked.

He didn't know what to say. He couldn't lie, because what would Sakura think of him? But he couldn't tell the truth, or he'd never live it down for the rest of his life.

But he didn't even have to answer. Naruto, knowing Sasuke well enough to know that if it had not been true, he would have immediately disclaimed it, learned volumes from his silence, first and foremost, that it was true.

"TEME DANCED!! !!!!!!! DANCE FOR US NOW TEME! DANCE, DANCE, DANCE…"

Most of the nin, including Ino, Kiba, Tenten, Chouji, Lee and Kakashi, joined in with Naruto.

Sasuke needed a plan of action. But the best he could come up with in a couple of seconds was run away. He decided he would have to do this, before a loud gasp sounded in the group, and the chanters fell silent.

It was Sai, and he was turned to face the forest. At the top of the cliff, on the edge of the forest, stood Orochimaru, Kabuto and the Sound 5. Orochimaru had an angry but cruel smile on his face.

"Are there any more, Neji?" Kakashi asked Neji, who had already activated his byakugan, in a low voice.

Neji shook his head.

"Get into position."

In only a second, the humorous atmosphere of earlier had disappeared, and all the nin except Sasuke and Sakura formed an arc, which was presumably their battle formation. Kakashi looked grim, and Sasuke could tell why. They were at the bottom of a hill, whereas Orochimaru was at the top, giving him a definite advantage.

"Sasuke, transport as far as you can towards Konoha without losing too much chakra. Take Sakura with you." Kakashi knew he was taking a big chance. To trust the point of the whole mission, which was to recover Sakura, to an S-class ranked criminal, would definitely not go down well with Tsunade, but he had no other options.

Sasuke nodded, and grabbed Sakura. He had time to see a look of pure rage on Orochimaru's face as he realised what they were doing, before they vanished, and reappeared again in the midst of trees.

He took a few seconds to gather his senses and work out which direction Konoha was in, before beginning to head that way, tailed by Sakura.

Suddenly, a familiar voice hissed,

"Too predictable, too predictable, Sasuke!"

Sasuke and Sakura turned to see a familiar snake-like figure. Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"I was almost unsure of whether to come this way – I thought you'd surely have the sense not to transport to the most obvious place. Well, looks as if it paid off. For me, that is." He gave an evil laugh. "Now, Sakura-chan. I'm very disappointed in you. You were enjoying yourself so much back in the Sound. Why did you have to leave and create hard feelings between us?"

"Get lost, freak." Sakura spat.

"Now now, let's behave properly, shall we?" In no time, he was before her, lifting her up using her hair.

"Let her go, bastard." Sasuke said roughly, before giving Orochimaru a strong kick to the abdomen and sending him flying. Crude, but effective.

Orochimaru simply laughed.

"So that's how you want it to be, eh? Fine, I'll just have to play… _hard_." He put a sharp and menacing emphasis on the word 'hard'.

He performed a series of strong and complicated hand seals. Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he realised what they were, and, just in time, he managed to pull Sakura out of the way of several explosions.

Sasuke performed his own hand seals, but Orochimaru merely smiled and deflected the several huge trees flying at him with a jutsu of his own. But before he had deflected the last tree, Sasuke was already ready and blowing a huge fire ball into his face. He evaded it easily; surprised that Sasuke would even bother trying something as immature as that.

But behind the fire, Sasuke and Sakura were both smiling. They had practiced this millions of times, and there was no way they would get it wrong this time. Sasuke blew another fireball, and Orochimaru evaded it once again, only this time to come face to face with Sakura, who struck him with a kunai. He was angered that she actually managed to draw blood, but he could not focus on that at the moment – he was too busy in hand-to-hand combat with Sakura. He frowned. What was it they were trying? Why was he fighting Sakura in hand-to-hand combat, when Sasuke was by far the more able ninja? But he realised too late, and he felt a searing sensation in his back, and only managed a substitution seconds before he would have been killed.

Panting, and behind a tree, Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. While Sakura had taken up his attention in hand-to-hand combat, Sasuke had prepared his chidori and hit him with it from behind.

His eyes narrowed. He had underestimated these two as a pair. He had known that Sasuke was capable of posing him such a big threat (he had been ready to risk that, thinking that as Sasuke valued his revenge above all else, he would be able to keep him at bay), but he had thought that Sakura would only be a burden to Sasuke, someone to protect, but it appeared that Sakura was actually able to assist Sasuke. He would have to resort to what appeared to be his only remaining advantage. With Kabuto and the Sound 5 held up by the Leaf nin, he knew he wouldn't be able to hold out for long against Sakura and Sasuke. He'd have to use his trump card.

But he knew that wouldn't fail. He was hoping not to have to resort to this, but he knew that retrieving Sakura was more important than having Sasuke's body, despite all the hard work that had gone into making that perfect.

A cruel smile entered his face as he began making several hand seals. He was still behind the tree, his chakra hidden, but he had a view of Sakura and Sasuke, who were both looking keenly around for him. When he finished his hand seals, he saw, to his satisfaction, Sasuke sink to the ground with a grunt. Sakura leapt down to him, concerned.

Orochimaru smiled as he saw the red markings spread across Sasuke's body, slowly turning black. Sakura gasped at the sight and she leapt back, away from Sasuke.

Sasuke knew what was happening to him. It was his cursemark. But it had never been this painful. Slowly, the burning feeling began to take on a whole new level. He had never experienced this kind of feeling before.

"S-Sakur-ra…" he managed. She came forward, and kneeled down to face him, concern and fear written all over her face.

"W-Why are you turning black, Sasuke?"

Sasuke lifted up his arm, to see that not only were the regular markings there, but they were spreading out into large blobs, turning his whole arm black. He saw the last patch of normal coloured skin disappear, and suddenly, he felt himself being cut loose. He could still see what was happening, but he didn't seem to be able to move or have any control over his actions.

Suddenly, he saw himself, without feeling it, lean forwards and grasp Sakura's hair and pull her up by it.

She gasped. She was horribly afraid. Then she felt as if her brain was being torn out, and the knowledge that it was Sasuke who was doing it made it even worse. She heard an evil laugh, and Orochimaru appeared from between some trees.

"Aww, poor Sakura-chan! Being hurt by dear Sasuke-kun! Now why on earth would he choose to do that, I wonder?"

With that, Sasuke saw his own arms lift Sakura up, still by the hair and tie it to a branch of a tree, leaving her hanging by her hair.

"Well, I think it's obvious, Sakura-chan! He never really wanted to go with you, I told him to! He was never really your friend, I told him to be! Just so I could make sure that you'd trust him and that if something like this happened that I'd be able to get you back! Foolish little Sakura-chan!"

Sakura simply spat out at Orochimaru and struggled to get down from her position.

"There's no way that's true, you bastard. You're somehow just managing to make him do what you say even without saying it…" Even as she spoke, her voice lost confidence.

"Oh really? Why don't you show her, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke heard himself give a sadistic laugh and say,

"It's true, you fool."

"Still so sure?" Orochimaru turned to Sakura.

She wasn't. Her face contained large signs of doubt, worry and anxiety.

Sasuke felt himself walk forward and slap her, while cruelly laughing. It was then that he began to feel really, really angry. He began to fight with himself.

On the outside, he did nothing but give a small grunt.

It was the look on her face that did it. It radiated hurt, betrayal, and pain, and Sasuke couldn't bear it.

Orochimaru and Sakura both heard a larger grunt, as Sasuke fell to the ground. Both of their eyes widened as he began to roll around. Patches of him began to turn to the normal skin colour. Suddenly he stood up, and all the black on his body receded.

"It's not true Sakura, don't listen t-" The black began to reappear, and he shook his head. "Just a momentary spasm- No don't listen Sakura it's n- Ugh, sorry I don't know what's wrong w- don't you see Sakura this isn- Shut up, just ignore the words coming out of my-"

By now, Sakura had understood what was happening.

"Come on, Sasuke!" she screamed. "You can do it!"

She was right. Slowly the black all over him began to recede, and in the end, it disappeared.

Orochimaru's eyes widened.

"How could this be… NO!"

Sasuke charged forward with his chidori already prepared, and nothing Orochimaru could do would stop him. A horrible scream rang out as the chidori pierced through Orochimaru, killing the snake bastard, once and for all.

After doing this, Sasuke immediately turned to Sakura and untied her hair from the tree, and caught her before she could fall to the ground.

He then sank to the ground and put her down, both of them panting with exhaustion.

But through their deep breaths, they could both see the other smiling victorious smiles.

They had won.

**Hey people, hope you liked this scene. It was particularly hard to write, because I'm so bad at fight scenes, so I'm sorry those of you who thought it was too short or they won too easily. I don't blame you at all; it's just that I find fight scenes too hard to write a longer one. Anyway, thanks for reading and please review! Reviews make me happy! ;)**


	15. Explanation and painful sadness

Sakura shuffled over to Sasuke, and began to examine him for injuries.

"Have you even healed yourself?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes." Sakura lied.

Sasuke satisfied, complied patiently.

"Sasuke," Sakura began, while still focussing on his injuries, "What were those strange black things on your body?"

Sasuke, suddenly remembering his curse mark, made his hand fly to his neck. He couldn't feel a bump, whereas there used to be before.

"Sakura, is there anything on my neck?"

He felt Sakura's eyes, scrutinizing it closely.

"No. Does it hurt there?"

"No. It's just…" and he told her the story of how he had obtained his curse mark, how it meant that Orochimaru had a hold on him, not that he had known how strong that hold had been until today, and what happened to him when it took over.

"So did your body turn totally black before when the curse mark used to take over?"

"No – it was just those markings you saw at the beginning. My body turning totally black was part of some control jutsu which Orochimaru had that I didn't know about. The blacker my body, the more he could control my actions."

"Yes, I noticed. When you were saying things that I thought the real you would say, the black began to disappear, and when you were saying evil things, the black grew even bigger."

A silence ensued, before Sakura broke it.

"Why didn't you tell me he had this kind of hold on you?"

"I didn't know it was this strong until today, and I didn't tell you about the curse mark at all because… it never really occurred to me."

Sakura nodded, understanding.

"Sakura… have you finished?"

Sakura shot back, as she realised she had simply been pressing down on Sasuke's back without doing anything.

"Yes." she said absentmindedly.

"Good." he said standing up and stretching.

She began to heal herself.

"I thought you said you had healed yourself!"

She shrugged.

"I lied."

Sasuke glared at her, before resting against a tree trunk and waiting for her to finish.

When she finished, he took her hand.

"We need to get back to the valley. They might need our help fighting, or even if the fight's over, they'll almost definitely need your skills as a medic."

She nodded, and he transported.

Back at the valley, they found that once Kabuto and the Sound 5 had sensed the disappearance of the frighteningly evil aura of Orochimaru, they had run away with their tails in between their legs, probably back to the Sound.

"Well done on being able to kill him. You two most be really strong as a pair." Kakashi eyed them closely. He then shook his head and turned to Sakura. "Do you remember any medic skills?"

"Do I?" said Sakura laughing. Kakashi looked at her expectantly. She rolled her eyes, realising he had not understood the meaning of her words, and said. "Yes."

"Good, because they're sorely needed." He pulled Sakura quickly over to one of the tents. Inside, was Tenten, lying unconscious, with a bloody red wound on her side. Sakura rushed over to her, and began the process of healing. By the end, she was sweating, but she wiped her sweat away, and said to Kakashi,

"She'll be awake in a couple of hours."

She was then rushed to the next tent, containing Kiba and his dog Akamaru, both needing attention.

After healing them, pulling several shuriken out of Sai, fixing a few minor injuries for the unconscious Shikamaru and the same for Naruto, and pulling a large katana out of Chouji, Sakura was exhausted but exhilarated. She had faced and succeeded in every challenge she had been presented with that day. Truly nothing gave her the same feeling as healing did.

But, just before she sank to the ground with a sigh of satisfaction, Kakashi came to her once again.

"Just one more, Sakura. It's Lee. He's unconscious, but I can't find anything wrong with him."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. That was strange. She followed Kakashi into Lee's tent. As soon as she saw him, she knew there was something wrong. She quickly knelt down and began to examine his injuries. Of course Kakashi hadn't been able to find anything – he was bleeding internally. But it was bad. Very bad. Why hadn't Kakashi called her here before? Most of the others' wounds could have waited, but this was really serious.

Sakura began to breathe deeply. Her hands almost shook with nervousness.

'Ok, Sakura. Calm down, calm down. Ok, the first step.' But she couldn't remember. Her mind had gone totally blank.

"What's the first step? Damn you, the first step!" She could barely restrain herself from hitting her hand down onto Lee's body. Suddenly it came to her.

'Ok, examine. Done. An internal puncture to the coronary artery. Assess. Done. Very, very bad. Prescribe/decide.' Sakura paused a minute, her breath caught in her throat. 'Ok, done. Now heal.'

She knelt down to Lee and pumped chakra into his body, causing the cells of the outer lining of the artery. When she was done she leaned back. That had used a lot of chakra from her already depleted store. But she leaned forward again. She was not finished. She still had the inner lining to fix. Without that, what she had done was next to useless. But then she realised her mistake. Fixing the outer wall first prevented access to the inner lining, but he could not carry out gas exchange around the body without that inner lining.

She realised that she would have to undo everything she had done so far and do it all over again.

She got to work, but by the time she had punctured the outer wall she had just fixed, her chakra was very scarce. However, she would not give up. She began fixing the inner lining. She managed that without collapsing, but she was not a girl who knew when to stop. She began on the outer wall once again. She managed to complete it, leaving her with such a miniscule amount of chakra that she could barely move. She sat back and sighed, breathing deeply. She had done it.

She put a hand over Lee's heart, aching to hear the steady heartbeat which owed its existence to her. But it was not there. Shocked, Sakura grabbed his hand and felt for his pulse. But that too was lacking.

"No… NO!" she leaned forward, and began to pump Lee's heart. There was nothing else left for her to do. This had to work. She pumped and pumped and pumped. She even tried artificial respiration. She kept on pumping and trying artificial respiration for one hour straight. Ino, Naruto and Sasuke had all entered some time ago. Ino and Naruto were looking down in shock at the state of their friend while Sasuke simply stared at her. After they realised she was not planning to stop, Sasuke leaned forward and reached out to her.

"Sakura." he said gently. "I'm sorry. But doing this… isn't going to make him come back.

"NO!" she screamed, as she slapped his hand away and returned to what she had been doing. She managed ten more minutes before collapsing on the ground, her body not willing, and not even able, to give up any more chakra.

For a whole minute, Ino, Naruto and Sasuke simply stared down, shocked, and heartbroken at what they had just seen. Ino's expression showed heartbreak, while Naruto simply looked shocked, and Sasuke looked even more emotionless than usual.

But what people couldn't tell, was that that was Sasuke's way of hiding from the world. The more emotion he felt, the more care he took to hide it, and the more emotionless he looked.

After this, Ino gave a shuddering sigh, and Sasuke stepped forward. He lifted up Sakura and took her outside. Everyone had woken up and was stretching there while chatting. When they saw Sasuke carrying Sakura, they all fell silent.

"I-is Sak-kura-ch-chan alr-right?" Hinata stammered.

"Yes." Sasuke said. " But… Lee… he…"

A deathly silence fell over the already silent group, as, one by one, they began to understand.

"Lee…" Tenten whispered. A tear trickled down her cheek. Hinata clasped her hand over her mouth, and tears began to pour from her eyes like waterfalls. Ino came out of the tent, her face in her hands, before she removed them and revealed her wet face and red eyes. Naruto followed her carrying Lee. Tenten began to sob quietly. Even Naruto, Kiba and Chouji got over their pride and allowed themselves to unsubtly blink as they tried to rid themselves of any tears that might appear. The others simply stood, in a sad and respectful silence.

"Gai…" Kakashi murmured. "This will kill him…"

* * *

When Sakura next awoke she was lying in the darkness by herself. When she sat up, she realised she was in a tent, and memories of earlier came flooding back. A single tear made a pathway down her cheek, followed by another. Before she knew it her cheeks were soaked, and tears continued to flood down them. This depression…

She could have saved him. She knew she could have. If she had just been a bit faster. If she had been able to think of the four steps quicker. ARGH! Why was her mind so slow? If she had just not made that initial mistake with the outer wall. This was all her fault. Lee was dead, and it was all her fault. How would she be able to face the world again, when she knew that she had deprived someone else of its joys? She had always known that healing gave a feeling you could get from nowhere else when you succeeded… but she had never realised that this was the price if you failed. She cupped her face in her hands and buried it into her tucked in knees. She felt the clammy dampness of the two surface meet, and she felt enclosed, in her own small world.

Maybe here she could escape from what she had done. Maybe salvation was here. But she could still feel that wrenching in her heart. It felt like half of her was being pulled upwards while the other was being tugged down. And the pain was in her heart. She put her hand against it and moaned. She felt her own steady heartbeat, and her face creased up again, followed by another flood of tears.

It was then she realised that there was another presence in the room. Sasuke had come to check if she was awake, and had found her like this, every one of her heart-wrenching sobs tearing his heart like a sharpened kunai.

He stepped forward, awkwardly, not sure what to do. But then he _knew_. He just had to follow his heart, and his instincts. They led him to sit next to her, before enveloping her in a tight hug, and rocking her backwards and forwards. Her tears soaked in through his shirt, but he only clasped her tighter.

"It wasn't your fault." he whispered, knowing exactly what was going through her mind. But he said no more. He didn't need to. He kept on rocking her backwards and forwards until he heard the sobs stop, and her breathing reached a steady pace. He then lifted her up and tucked her into her sleeping bag, making sure she was as comfortable as possible.

He quietly made his way to the opening of the tent, but just before leaving, he turned around and repeated,

"It wasn't your fault." He then made his way outside the tent, to come face to face with Naruto who had been watching the whole time through the crack in the opening of the tent flap.

"Wow, teme! That was amazing!" he said. "Being with Orochimaru _definitely_ made you nicer. That's weird." he said thoughtfully, before walking away. Sasuke stared after him, bowled over by his stupidity.

Sasuke went to sleep himself, it being dark, and him being tired from the eventful day.

The next morning, the nin had a funeral for Lee, deciding that it was impractical to take him all the way back to Konoha, though Kakashi did take specific note of the burial spot, to tell Gai, who would certainly want to pay his respects. They buried him in a picturesque spot at the top of the hill, from where the view was magnificent. Everyone gathered wildflowers, found in the forest and arranged by Ino, and everyone stood with their hands clasped, around the grave, as Tenten made a speech for her friend. On his plaque, a large stone found in the forest, fashioned and cut, as well as engraved on by Sai, was the message:

'Lee.  
A youthful shinobi and a fantastic friend.  
May he rest in peace.'

Nobody cried. Everyone knew how happy and full of life Lee had been, and nobody wanted to weigh his memory down with tears or misery.

Sakura was calm now. She was peaceful. As she laid her wildflowers on his grave, she thought,

'Dear Lee. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you, but I know you wouldn't want me to think of that. So… thank you. For everything. And I hope you'll always be happy. Love from Sakura.'

She stepped back with a sigh and let the next person in the line lay their flowers and pay their respects. She was at peace with herself once more. But she knew who she owed that to. She gave a small smile as she saw Sasuke put his flowers on the grave and stand there for a few seconds, before moving away.

'Thank you, Sasuke.'


	16. Conversation and a journey's end

**Sorry this chapter is so short – I'll try and make up for it by doing another one as quickly as possible. Remember though, I said TRY.**

The leaf nin sat around huddled together near the fire, quietly chatting amongst themselves, except for Sakura who had excused herself some time ago, and had gone to lie some distance away, out of the sight of the nin, and watch the stars. The despairing atmosphere of yesterday had been lifted, but the memory of Lee was still lingering, and the nin were more subdued than usual. Except for one of course – it was near impossible for _him_ to be subdued.

"Oh, poor old Lee. He was always so brave and strong." Naruto shouted insensitively. Most of the nin flinched at the deafening noise. "He was always cheerful, smiling, being youthful, doing laps around the village, training, dancing-" He suddenly stopped and his eyes widened. He turned to face Sasuke, who was sitting behind him, with a sly smile on his face. "Oh, te-me! Don't think I've forgotten your little dancing episode yesterday." Most of the nin's faces perked up as they remembered the incident Naruto spoke of. "This time, you're not going to escape." He began to come closer to Sasuke, who narrowed his eyes.

The other nin (or at least, the ones who were interested) also got up and began to surround Sasuke. Before he knew it, they were all filling the air with deafening chants of "Dance, Sasuke, dance! Dance, Sasuke, dance! Dance,…"

This time, Sasuke was surrounded. He had nowhere to run. He only had one option left. He took a deep breath…

…and began to break-dance.

HAHAHAHAHA! Fooled you! Of course he didn't break-dance! The day Sasuke break-dances is the day that we find out that everything that happens in Avatar is actually true, and the Na'Vi really do exist. Which is hopefully very soon.

Ok, back to the story of Sasuke and Sakura, sorry about that little diversion.

So, he took a deep breath, and transported to where Sakura lay (the other nin did not know where she was, but Sasuke had secretly followed her to make sure she was not still despairing, or going to do any harm to herself). She was surprised to see him.

"Sasuke?" she asked, sitting up from the position she had been lying in earlier. "What are you doing here?"

"Running away from Naruto and the rest. They're trying to make me dance again. They had me cornered, so I had to transport. Why did you ever tell them the truth about that night?"

Sakura grinned and lay back down, putting her hands behind her head.

"I didn't know it was _such_ a rare thing."

Sasuke simply glared at her, knowing that she must have had some idea of what the consequences of telling the others would be.

"Just hide here." Sakura said, patting the grass beside her. "We can chat."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, but did accept the proffered seat.

They remained silent for some time, before Sakura suddenly broke the silence.

"Sasuke, do you know that you're selfish?"

Sasuke, slightly shocked, raised one eyebrow and turned to face Sakura.

"I mean, I'm not trying to tell you off or reprimand you or anything, but have you ever realised how selfish you are? As a purely conversational question?"

Sasuke didn't reply, but simply stared at her, not sure whether she had lost it, or if she had never had it.

"Just, a very general point, you are selfish. You have always acted of your own interests and never bothered to consider others'. And you will plough through, and push past anything and anyone, to get what you want. In most cases this is called determination, or perseverance, but here I think it's actually just selfishness. No matter what amount of hard work someone has put in, or the amount of time someone has spent building something up, whether they have good or bad intentions, and no matter what it is you're ploughing through, if it's in your way, you will plough through it without a second thought. Have you ever thought about that?"

Sasuke remained silent, not sure how to answer that.

"I'm not trying to insult you, or point out your faults, but just very conversationally."

Sasuke still remained silent.

"Oh well, it's ok if your not comfortable talking about it."

There was a period of silence before Sakura began to softly hum.

"You know, Sasuke, you can talk if you want to. I'm taking your silence to mean that you don't want to, but if you do, please don't be afraid."

Guess what? Sasuke remained silent? How did you know?

Sakura sighed.

"You know, Sasuke, sometimes I find that you really are enclosed amongst yourself. You isolate yourself from everybody else, and I really can't tell why. But you need to know something, and if you already know it, you obviously don't understand what it means." She came close to him and looked earnestly at him. He felt her eyes search his very soul. "You're _not_ alone."

A small smile entered her face and she lay back into her original position, hoping she had said the right thing.

Sasuke lay still, digesting what she had told him. Suddenly, it came to him like a revolution. She was right – he wasn't alone. She was by his side, and not just in the literal sense. But this could not be good. To achieve his goal, he had to be selfish like she had said. Otherwise it would be impossible. And this bond had no way of helping him to achieve his goal – it was just another useless tie. But what was he to do? He turned to face Sakura. He knew, whatever his mind and logic told him, this bond was just not one his heart could break. He needed her.

Sakura suddenly started up.

"It must be really late! We should go back. They might start worrying. Hopefully they won't try and make you dance again."

Sasuke nodded silently and stood up. They walked back to the camp together. Most people had already gone to bed. Naruto remained awake, however.

"Teme! Where the hell did you disappear?! We looked for you everywhere. Now everybody's gone to sleep and there's no point in making you dance." He said pouting.

"Whatever, dobe."

Sakura laughed, while Naruto carried on ranting as they made their way to their tent, while Sakura joined Ino in their tent.

The next morning, the nin embarked on their journey once more. They developed a very similar stream to before. This time Sakura spoke to the two other girls, getting to know them. She found Tenten lively and funny, which suited her very well – they enjoyed chatting and making jokes with each other, as well as racing, and competing with each other.

Privately, Tenten thought Sakura had changed a lot. She had not known her very well before, but she was sure she had not been this fun, and competitive! Tenten enjoyed talking to her much more now, though, so it was decidedly a change for the better.

With the shy Hinata, Sakura was kind and gentle, and tried her best to put her at ease and bring her out of her shell, and although she knew it wouldn't work after talking to her only once, she was sure that there was a lot more to Hinata than she let on, and she was determined to bring it out of her.

She also decided that, along with this, she would get Hinata and Naruto together. Hinata clearly liked Naruto – she made it obvious by blushing every time he came within a ten metre radius, but he, being the thick-skinned blockhead he was, did not notice this, and remained oblivious to this, and simply thought that she must not like him, though he did not cease his valiant, but loud, insensitive attempts to get her to talk.

Hinata, meanwhile, warmed enormously to Sakura, and really liked her and felt more comfortable around her than she did with many others. She decided that, one day, she might even take her into her confidence about her crush on Naruto (she was completely oblivious to how obvious she made her crush, and did not know that Sakura had known, almost from the minute she had seen her, about her crush on Naruto).

The nin travelled for a long time, leaping in between trees. All of a sudden, the trees and woodland around them came to a halt and they arrived on a road. Kakashi, making his way to the front, turned Sakura around to face her left. There, she saw a large gate, by which, stood two guards.

"Welcome to Konoha." he said, smugly.


	17. Reunion and a strange punishment

Sasuke glared at everything around him as he walked down the streets of his childhood home. So far, his journey here had been awful. The guards had almost attacked him, only just about stopped by Kakashi, and still very doubtful and wary of him after Kakashi's explanation. Then, every single person they had passed down the street, bar a blind man, had stared at him, then either screamed, hurried rapidly away, or made loud, stage whispered comments to the person standing near them. Sasuke had tried to hide himself in the gaggle of nin, but Sakura's continuous shouting of "Sasuke, look! It's a building!", "Sasuke, look! It's a tree!" and "Sasuke, look! It's a blind old man!" accompanied by Naruto's remarks ie. shouts of "Look, teme! Do you remember that ramen stand?", "Look, teme! Do you remember that leaf? No? HA! I knew you didn't have photographic memory.", really weren't doing anything to help him. He also grimaced at the thought of what punishment he would have to face at the hands of Tsunade.

Sakura, meanwhile, was having a great time taking in the scenery of the leaf village and beginning to see the place that was to be her home.

Soon enough, they did arrive at Tsunade's office. All the nin except Kakashi waited outside the office, expressions varying. Some of them looked tired, and just wanted to return to their homes as fast as possible, others looked bored, Sakura looked excited, and others simply looked as if they didn't care. Sasuke was one of the latter group, but his appearance did not match his true feelings. He was actually quite nervous as to what his punishment would be, and what he would face at the hands of Tsunade.

Suddenly, even though Kakashi had entered the office only a few seconds ago, the door crashed open and Sakura disappeared into a flurry of green and yellow. Then, without a word, the Godaime detached herself from the surprised Sakura and headed over to Sasuke, eyes full of venom.

"Uchiha Sasuke." she hissed. Sasuke simply looked even more bored than usual, causing Tsunade to narrow her eyes. Suddenly she lunged forward, and punched him in the face. He fell to the floor, shocked by that unexpected blow, and almost unable to refrain from nursing his bruised, and badly hurting face. "There." she said, "That'll teach you to act smart." She turned away from him and to the rest of the nin, who didn't even look surprised, and said, "The rest of you can go. Oh, apart from Sakura. And Neji and Tenten, could you please find Gai and bring him back here." Her face clouded over as she thought of the bad news she would have to deliver. All of the nin departed, except for those that had been asked to stay.

She once again turned to Sakura, who was slightly bewildered by everything that had just happened and her face softened. She then walked back into her office, beckoned for Sasuke and Sakura to follow, and, once they had, shut the door.

"It is very good to have you back here Sakura. You don't know the amount of worry you have caused me over the last couple of months. I want to help you settle back into Konoha as quickly as possible. However, this isn't going to be easy, as the elders decided to take over your apartment as we are currently short of housing space, and they didn't want to simply leave it unused when we weren't even sure when we would get you back. I have found a new apartment for you, and all your belongings are ready to go into it, but you won't be able to do this yourself." She then turned her eyes to Sasuke. "This is where you come in, Uchiha. The elders have decided to be _very_ lenient with you, as they value your clan a lot, and don't want it to die out, so they're trying to be nice to you and tempt you to stay here or something else like that. I think, quite frankly, that that's incredibly stupid, but considering the fact that you have also done the village a great service by killing Orochimaru, with the help of Sakura-" she turned to smile at Sakura, "-it may not be that stupid. Well, anyway, to get to the point, your punishment for all your various crimes and misconduct against Konoha is…" she took a deep breath, "…community service."

Sasuke barely refrained from laughing. That was it? _Community service? _What fools.

"I know what you're thinking." Tsunade said, an evil smile creeping across her face. "But it may not be as easy as you think. Your first task is to help Sakura move into her flat – fairly simple, I should think. After that-" she began rummaging around the various papers she had on her desk. Eventually, she found a scroll, buried in some other documents and empty bottles of sake. "-here is a list of your other assignments for the week."

Sasuke took the scroll from her and broke the seal. His mouth dropped open as it unravelled to roll across the floor and continue unravelling until the scroll, most of it still rolled up, banged on the door and stopped rolling.

Tsunade smirked evilly. "At the end of the week, come back here for your next list of weekly assignments. Oh, and you'd better finish them, my dear Sasuke, or you won't like what's coming to you." She turned to Sakura, changing tone completely, "And dear Sakura, good luck with settling in – at the end of the week, when you've found your way around this place – I'm sure Sasuke could show you round in his spare time – come back here, and I will introduce you to the hospital and show you the ropes around there – ok?" Sakura nodded. "Apart from that, if you have any questions, feel free to come here and ask me."

She stood up, and so did Sakura (Sasuke had got down on the floor some time ago trying to roll the scroll back up) and she showed them both, Sasuke still struggling to control the masses of paper, out, calling a black haired woman to show them to Sakura's new apartment. On the way out, they encountered Tenten, Neji and Gai, who Sakura was seeing for the first time. She noticed an extremely strong resemblance to Lee – same jumpsuit, same bowl hair cut, same eyebrows – but did not comment on it. Once out on the street, she sighed and skipped along, chatting to the black haired woman, who she learned was called Shizune, and was very glad to see her. Sasuke continued his eternal struggle with the scroll.

Soon they arrived at a large brown pagoda with red tiles on the roof. It had a lovely front garden with a path rambling from the gate to the front door and two sakura trees planted on either side of the path, and a large pond to the left, glittering with the sunlight, and with large koi fish swimming in it. There was a fountain in the middle, with a ballerina standing on one foot and holding a jug, from which the water sprayed out.

Sakura's eyes lit up at the sight of such a lovely place, and she excitedly followed Shizune up the path to the front door. Shizune unlocked the door. The entrance hall was a room with walls tinted slightly green, a hue of mint, with a large, orientally designed mirror hanging on the wall to the left above a brown table on which a blue vase containing brightly coloured flowers stood. To the right was a cabinet of brown maplewood which had three compartments, one labelled 1, another 2, and the last 3. The carpet was soft, and a rich, cream shade, which Sakura loved. To the far right was a flight of steps, and to the far left was a door labelled 1.

"There are only three flats in this building. You'll be glad to find that your neighbours are those you know very well – Tsunade-sama picked this flat for you because she thought you would be glad of the company of some people you knew – flat number 2, the one on the middle floor, is shared by Ino and Tenten, and flat number 3, on the top floor, is shared by Naruto and Sai. Flat number 1, on the ground floor, is a smaller flat than the other two, so you will have it to yourself – the woman who used to own it got married and moved into a larger house with her husband."

"Great!" Sakura was glad to know she would have the company of some people she knew.

Shizune stepped over to the door which had '1' on it, and unlocked it. She walked into it, followed by Sakura and Sasuke. The front room of the apartment had the same carpet as the entrance hall, but apart from that, was empty, with bare white walls, except several piles of boxes in the centre of the room.

"Sasuke-san will unpack this stuff for you – it's everything you had in your last apartment when the elders emptied it out." Shizune smiled at Sakura. "Happy?"

"Very." Sakura said, nodding.

"Ok, then. Guess I'd better be going. Tsunade-sama will have lots of work for me." She handed Sakura the keys, one large one to the outside door, and one smaller one to this inside door, held together by a key chain with an emblazoned sakura flower on it, outlined in sparkling green. "Tsunade's welcome home present." Shizune said, before waving and departing from the house.

"This is so cool!" Sakura exclaimed. "You'd better get started Sasuke. I'm going up to see Ino and Tenten." She ran out of the room without another word, leaving Sasuke to glare after her. He heard some loud exclamations upstairs, probably as Ino learnt that her best friend would be living downstairs, and concluding that she wouldn't be down any time soon, he took her advice and got to work.

First he began to unpack all the boxes – this was really the only thing he could do without any instruction from Sakura, so he did it as quickly as possible. Then he began to sort the items into sections – large pieces of furniture, small decorative ornaments, and others. The others pile consisted of mostly folders and pieces of paper, which Sasuke had difficulty stopping from drifting around the place. He glared and growled at nothing in particular as he leaned down to pick up the twenty-seventh piece of paper he had dropped. He was about to thrust it back into the pile with menace, when he saw a bright flash of pink on it.

It was a picture, probably drawn by Sakura when she was much younger. In it, was Sakura, smiling, and holding hands with a blue-haired boy, whose hair stuck up to resemble a chicken's backside, who was frowning viciously. Sasuke smirked as he recognised himself. It was true that a portrait of him frowning was more accurate than a portrait of him smiling. But his hair was definitely not that colour – it almost blended in with the sky. And did it really stick up in that unattractive way? Sasuke subconsciously raised his hand to try and flatten his unconquerable spikes of hair. He then noticed the side caption.

Sasuke+Sakura

Sasuke to me=boyfriend

Me to Sasuke=dont know

I like Sasuke=100 parsent

Sasuke likes me=dont know

Above the picture, the title 'Sakura loves Sasuke' was neatly inscribed. Sasuke smiled at the thought of a small Sakura sitting down to write this out very earnestly.

Just then, he heard voices, and Sakura and Ino appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"So if you need any help, just let me know. Oh, I really wish I could help you now, but I have to get down to the flower shop in 15 minutes or my mum will kill me."

"No, no, don't worry, pig, it's fine, Sasuke's doing all the work anyway." Sasuke glared at her, and she turned to meet his look with a mischievous smile.

"Ok. If Tenten gets back before I do, can you tell her to feed the fish? It's Naruto's turn, but the chance of him remembering is so close to zero, that we might as well just consider it that."

"Ok, cool." Sakura nodded.

"And you're going to be here when I get back right? Then I won't bother taking the keys – I'll almost definitely lose them."

"What about the keys to your apartment?"

"Oh, that, none of us actually ever lock our inner doors – I mean, we all know each other really well, so what's the point? It's supposed to be a group of flats, but really it's just like a big house."

"Oh, cool!" Sakura said, glad to know that they could all trust each other to that extent.

Ino then walked out of the door waving. Sakura turned to Sasuke and saw the piece of paper in his hand.

"What's that?" she asked, and came closer to inspect it. She laughed when she read it. "Man, was I obsessed!"

"Ok, now I need some help, Sakura."

"Why? I thought you were supposed to do this on your own!" Sakura teased.

"But you need to tell me where to put all this stuff!"

The argument continued for a few minutes, before Sakura, laughing, gave in, and began to lean against the wall and tell Sasuke where to place stuff. She then realised that this was not the only room, and she began to explore the apartment, finding another room, looking out on the fish pond, which would presumably be her bedroom, a tiny kitchen, which had tiled floors with sweet flowered designs on them, and a bathroom with blue tiles, a tinted blue bath tub, with matching sink, toilet and cabinet. These new discoveries gave Sasuke even more work to do, as Sakura changed her mind about where she wanted things, and he had to move them into many different rooms.

After all items were disposed of, Sakura found of hoard of wallpapers in a box which Sasuke had overlooked, and together they began to choose good places for them and apply them. This wasn't a total success, as neither of them were true masters of the art of wallpapering, so they had to go with the trial and error method, which often ended up in a random patch here and there with totally different wallpaper, and Sakura on the floor in a laughing fit as it looked so ridiculous. However, they got the hang of it in the end, and the outcome, was a really nice looking apartment.

They had just finished, and collapsed on the floor with great sighs, when they heard a voice saying,

"Ino? Is that you? What are you doing all the way down there?"

Sakura ventured out into the entrance hall to see a sleepy Naruto looking down the stairs. His eyes widened when he saw her.

"Sakura-chan? What are you doing here?"

"I'm moving in to the bottom floor flat!"

"Really?! That's so great! Wait till I tell Sai!"

And soon enough, Sakura was up on the top floor chatting to Naruto and Sai, hitting him for calling her the usual nickname of ugly, which he had not used on the journey here, as he had not really known her enough (her having lost her memory), and getting acquainted with the crazy antics of the household she was about to join.

Sasuke, meanwhile, lay on the floor downstairs, resting for what little time he could before he would have to embark on another 'community service' task.


	18. A magical place and few bottles of sake

Sakura gasped with delight. Sasuke shut his eyes and tried his hardest to wish himself into another location.

"As part of your welcome home, we thought you'd like to come here – it's lots of fun, I promise." Ino said.

"Don't worry, I don't doubt that!" Sakura said. Nothing entranced her more than the bright lights, fast whooshing noises and screams of laughter emanating from the fairground before them. She could hear stall owners shouting their wares, popcorn, candyfloss, fortune telling, and more, and it seemed like a magical place to her.

As soon as they had bought their entrance tickets, Sakura zoomed in with Ino and lost herself amongst the huge crowds near the various stalls and rides. Naruto meanwhile headed straight for the ramen stand, dragging Sasuke with him (he didn't want to pay for it himself).

"Remind me why I'm here?" Sasuke muttered as he watched Naruto wolf down tons of ramen in the space of 10 seconds.

"Because baa-chan said you have to show Sakura-chan around, and me and Ino aren't going to let you escape while we do all the hardwork." Naruto replied, displaying his chewed food.

Sasuke grimaced.

"Disgusting."

"Whatever." Naruto said, his mouth still full of food.

A few hours passed with Naruto continuing to wolf down ramen and Sasuke trying to get himself out of his predicament with sheer willpower, but failing. Finally, after the 54th bowl of ramen, Naruto sat back with a contented sigh. He asked for the bill, and when it came, passed it to Sasuke.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" asked Sasuke thrusting the bill back at Naruto.

"Pay it, of course!" said Naruto, surprised that Sasuke even bothered asking.

"Ha! Are you crazy?" Sasuke gave a dry laugh before getting up and walking away from the stand.

"B-but, teme, wait!" Naruto lumbered after him, bloated with the amount of ramen he had eaten. "You have to pay it! I don't have enough money!"

"You should have thought of that before you ate 54 bowls of ramen." said Sasuke continuing to walk away.

"But teme! That guy will probably report me to baa-chan!"

"Do I look like I care? Well, I don't." Sasuke said.

Similar banter continued, with Naruto trying to convince Sasuke to pay the bill, and Sasuke refusing, until, suddenly, the pair bumped into Ino.

"Sasuke! Come here! Maybe you can convince her." She dragged Sasuke away, while Naruto continued to follow. The man at the ramen stand had begun to shout at him to come back and pay the bill, and he, having realised that Sasuke was not going to pay, began to run. Sasuke and Ino stared after him.

"What a retard." They said in unison.

"Anyway, back to the point." Ino continued to drag Sasuke, until they reached a stall containing a lucky dip. Sakura stood there, holding a large teddy bear, and several large bags, probably containing loot from the various fairground stalls.

"Ok, Sasuke. You've got to convince Sakura to go on the ferris wheel." She signalled to the huge ferris wheel, adorned with lights and moving slowly round.

"No! I've already said, I'm not going on the ferris wheel! I mean, look at it! It's huge! What if I fall off the top?"

"You won't!" Ino argued.

"But what if I do?" Ino turned in an exasperated way to Sasuke.

"You won't, Sakura." he said gently.

"A-are you sure?" Sakura asked doubtfully.

"Yes." Sasuke said firmly.

"O-ok."

Ino looked amazed.

"I spend half an hour trying to convince this girl, and I fail, you say 3 words to her, and she agrees! This is ridiculous."

"Sasuke, you have to come with me, though."

"Fine then, come on, let's go!" Ino pulled the other two along, glad that Sakura had at least been convinced in the end. They reached the long queue for the ferris wheel, and waited, Sasuke calm, Ino excited, and Sakura anxious. After it had gone around twice, they were third in the queue and finally managed to get themselves on it. They all got into one carriage, and strapped their seat belts on. Sakura realised that she had stopped breathing in her anticipation for the jolt that would mark the beginning of the journey of doom, and breathed. Sasuke simply looked out into the distance, and Ino tapped her feet on the floor, excited.

Then, all of a sudden, the ferris wheel jolted and begun to move upwards. Sakura squealed and shut her eyes, burying her head into her knees.

"It's ok, it's ok, it's going to be fine…" she muttered to herself while practically hyperventilating. Sasuke frowned, but let her be for that moment.

They reached the very top of the ferris wheel. It was dark, and as Sasuke looked around, he could see the lights of the fairground shining brightly, and breaking through the dark surface of the floor, as well as the lights in the homes of the people of Konoha, spread out all around them, blinking like fairy lights hung decoratively in a festive season. The sounds of the fairground were dimmed out by the distance to the ground, and the lights, and the peace all combined to make a magical moment. Sasuke could see that Ino was spellbound, and he was sure Sakura would be too.

"Sakura." he said gently. "Sakura, look up." Sakura, however, continued to look downwards. He gently shook her arm, and slowly she began to come out from her tucked in position. The first thing she noticed was the distance to the ground, and she whimpered, clutching on to Sasuke's arm so hard it made him wince.

However, she then saw everything Sasuke had seen, and it took only a moment for the magic to grasp her. She slowly let go of Sasuke's arm, entranced by the beauty of the moment.

Then, the ferris wheel began on its downward journey to the ground. When it finally did land on the ground, with a jolt, Sakura sighed. As the three disembarked from the ferris wheel, they trudged in silence for a while, walking to nowhere in particular, simply taking in the moment that had just happened. Finally, Sakura spoke.

"That was… amazing." she said. "Thank you, Sasuke." She turned towards him with a small smile.

"Ahem." Ino said, looking expectant.

"Hello, Ino." Sakura said, feigning innocence, and causing Ino to playfully hit her, and both of them to laugh.

"Well, anyway," Ino said, "I think this calls for a celebration. And I know just the thing."

Before Sasuke knew it, the three of them were in a nightclub with people dancing all around them and the heat of the place really suffocating him.

"Have you ever had any alcohol, Sakura?" Ino shouted, over the sound of the music.

"No – what's that?" Sakura shouted back.

"You know – sake, beer, anything like that?"

"Well, I remember there was sake at some of Orochimaru's feasts, but I never had any."

"Well, there's always a first! Sasuke, do you want anything?" Sasuke shook his head, and Ino signalled to the waiter. "Two bottles of sake please."

The waiter nodded and turned to the cabinet of drinks behind him, taking out two dark brown bottles out from it, and placing them in front of Sakura and Ino, along with two glasses containing ice.

Sakura watched as Ino twisted the lid of the bottle off and poured the liquid into the glass. She soon followed suit. Ino began to swig it down. Sakura watched her, before slowly taking a tiny sip of the sake. She grimaced.

"This is disgusting!" she exclaimed.

"Drink some more – you'll start to like it."

Sakura looked doubtful, but followed Ino's instructions, and drank a few more sips. Strangely, she found that Ino was right, and the sake did start to taste a lot better. She kept on drinking until she had finished the whole bottle. Ino ordered more, and they both continued to drink. After several bottles, Sakura was thoroughly light headed and woozy.

She slapped her fist down onto the table and began laughing in a slurred way at nothing in particular. Sasuke took this as a good sign to stop. He stood up, and pulled Sakura to her feet.

"Come on, Sakura let's go."

"O-ok." But Sakura had not understood Sasuke's meaning, and the next minute she had pushed him into the crowd of dancing people. In the heat of the tiny crannies of space between the moving bodies, Sasuke felt severely uncomfortable.

"No, Sakura." He grabbed her hand and thrust his way out of the crowd, dragging her with him. He looked around for Ino, but she was nowhere to be seen, and Sasuke, deciding that she was not his responsibility, and that she would find her way home eventually, proceeded to the exit.

"No! I want to dance." Sakura said, in a slurred way. Sasuke managed to pull her out of the nightclub, but right outside, she collapsed on him. Grunting with frustration, he lifted her up, and began walking to the exit of the fairground – by now, most people had either returned home or were in the nightclubs, so it was quite empty.

"Oh, Sasukeeee!" Sakura said, tickling his hand. "You're so… you're so…" she seemed to lose track of what she was going to say. "It's so pretty and colours. Booooooooring! That's it. You're sooo booooooring. No it's so…" she narrowed her eyes and stared at nothing in particular while mouthing what seemed like nonsense. Suddenly she shouted, "SOP IT! Why are you so mean to me? Where are you taking me? HEEELP!" Then she grew subdued once more. "Thank you Sasuke. I love you." She beamed and slapped him on the cheek. Sasuke, getting more worried by the second, hurried his pace, eager to get to her house where he could leave her and her madness.

However, Sakura did not seem to want to comply with this. She began to violently struggle, grunting and practically wrestling with Sasuke, and even in her drunken stupor, Sasuke was no match for her, and she had soon stumbled out his arms and was ambling along the street side to side in the wrong direction, singing very loudly and untunefully, before banging into a wall and falling onto the street unconscious. Sasuke simply rolled his eyes, ready to expect anything from this girl, and picked her up before tossing her over his shoulder like a sack and continuing to walk, this time in the right direction. He smirked as he thought of the hangover that was awaiting Sakura at the other end of this deep sleep.

Soon enough, he reached Sakura's building and rang the doorbell. Sakura had the keys somewhere on her person, but Sasuke was not about to ransack her pockets, and he was pretty sure Sai would be at home anyway.

However, to his annoyance, nobody opened the door, even though he could see, by stepping back, that there were actually lights on on the top floor. Glaring at them as if Sai could see him, Sasuke silently cursed him, and dipped his hand into Sakura's pocket. Luckily the keys seemed to be at the top of the collection of items in the pocket, and Sasuke didn't have to rummage too much. He unlocked the door, glaring up at the above floors and at the unseen Sai, before opening Sakura's door.

His mouth fell open at the extreme mess he was greeted with. Girly magazines and sweet wrappers were strewn across the floor, accompanied by empty DVD cases of either very old and romantic films or modern chick flicks. Sasuke could tell that this was a result of Ino's influence. He travelled through to the equally messy bedroom, dumping Sakura on the bed, and escaped as quickly as possible. Before leaving the flat, he took once last look at the squalid flat, and though it tore him apart to leave it in this state, he could not bring himself to stay. He exited and shut the door, taking a deep breath, before traversing out into the open air and making his way over to the Uchiha compound.

He soon reached the gates and entered, with the customary wave of sadness and hatred that all the memories of this place brought back to him. He felt sad and alone in it, and missed the company of his family. It was so big, and it made him feel isolated to be the only one in it. He wished he could stay in a building with others, like Sakura did, or even share this compound with others, though he would never admit it. His pride stopped him from telling Tsunade his problems with living alone in such a large estate, and he knew that she had expected him to stay here, and not even thought of any alternatives, as it was his home, and the elders didn't want to demolish it to make small flats despite the lack of housing, as they had hopes for the continuing of the Uchiha clan. She had probably also not considered asking Sasuke to share his compound with others until the clan grew as she had probably been sure that he would have refused, or certainly not been very keen on it.

But Sasuke had changed in the last few years, though Tsunade was not yet aware of it, and at that moment he longed for some company in the solitude of his home.

He sighed as he opened the door of the particular building he inhabited and entered.


	19. A day at the hospital and a fortune told

**Hey everyone! I'm back after a long time, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the rest!**

True to Sasuke's expectations, Sakura did have a hangover the next day – and a terrible one at that. She vowed to never drink another drop of alcohol, but Sasuke shook his head, knowing that this vow could never last long.

He leaned against the wall with crossed arms and frowned in distaste as she lay writhing and moaning on the floor, clutching her head and occasionally throwing up.

"It's not fair – why is this happening to me? Are they trying to kill me?" she groaned. Sasuke's look turned into a smirk.

"Now maybe you'll think twice before you drink five bottles of sake."

Sakura stopped her writhing for long enough to give him a piercing glare before returning to her original state of moaning.

Sasuke heard a thumping noise as Ino bounded down the stairs, full of energy. When she saw Sakura's condition, she laughed.

"That happened to me the first time as well. Don't worry, the more you drink it the more resiliant to this you'll be."

"Never again!" Sakura practically shrieked.

"Calm down!" Ino said warily.

"How can I with this- this- _thing_ inside me?"

Ino did not reply but disappeared into Sakura's kitchen and returned with a bucket full of water. She was joined by Sasuke in grinning evilly as she stood over the unaware Sakura, poised to tip, which she did as soon as Sakura sensed that something was amiss and turned her head upwards.

Sakura gasped and did not move as she felt the freezing cold water caress her head and drip onto her body.

"There." Ino said, satisfied.

Sakura glared, but found that she did indeed feel much better. She hoisted herself up and shook her head to remove the water that had nestled itself into her hair.

"Today's your first day at the hospital!" Ino said brightly. "It's only a half day for you to see how things work and show Tsunade what you remember of healing. After that, Tsunade's ordered Naruto and Sasuke to entertain you, and I think I know what Naruto has in mind." She said grinning.

Sasuke raised his eyebrows and inspected his list to see that 'entertaining Sakura' was indeed on this week's community service agenda. Last week had been a gruelling affair, going from picking up litter on the streets whilst having to endure the suspicious looks of the Leaf citizens, who had been told that he was no longer a criminal, but still did not trust him, to walking dogs and changing the nappies of bratty babies who refused to stop wailing.

However, sitting with Naruto at a ramen stand and watching him gulp down one bowl after the other, and having to pay for it himself, wasn't exactly his idea of a break.

"Your full day timetable at the hospital starts tomorrow when Tsunade will have assessed you and will know where to put you."

Sakura nodded.

Ino suddenly seemed to remember something and dashed up the stairs, leaving Sakura looking bewilderedly after her. She returned in a couple of minutes, carrying some neatly folded clothes, which she handed to Sakura telling her that that was to be her hospital uniform.

"Now go get changed or we'll be late!" Ino peered anxiously at the clock, knowing that bringing Sakura in late on her first day would not go down well with the Godaime.

Sakura did not take long to change her attire and return, and soon enough, Sakura and Ino were walking down the streets of Konoha, bathed in sunlight, but feeling the crisp, sharp air of a cold winter's day brace their lungs. Sasuke, meanwhile was left in Sakura's apartment to pick up his list with a sigh, and seek the first duty he had to perform.

Sakura and Ino reached the hospital just in time, and were greeted by the smiling Shizune.

"Thank you Ino-chan. You may go to your department, and I will take Sakura-chan from here."

Ino smiled and waved at Sakura as she walked away into one of the endless white corridors.

Sakura took in the clean air and the people bustling around, but in an organised way, making the atmosphere feel very ordered and structured.

"Come this way, Sakura-chan." Shizune began to lead Sakura down one of the corridors. "Tsunade-sama is waiting for you. Since it is your first day here since you lost your memory, she has decided to show you around herself, and also assess how much of your healing ability you have retained, as to decide what to have you doing in the hospital."

Sakura smiled, glad that even the Godaime had time to help her.

Shizune continued. "If you do not remember enough to at once recommence your job at the hospital, Tsunade-sama will take some time to train you, as she did before. However, Kakashi-san gives us a report of your healing after the battle with Orcohimaru which leads us to believe that it will certainly not be necessary."

Sakura was slightly overwhelmed. "I had been taught by the Godaime?"

"Oh yes, of course!" Shizune said matter-of-factly. "You always showed great promise and ability as a medic, so Tsunade-sama decided to take you under her own wing and train you."

Sakura was silent. Kabuto had always praised her and said that she was a natural medic, but she had not realised that she was good enough to merit the training of the Hokage.

They soon reached a large room, which contained many beds, surrounded by curtains, in which injured people were lying. Tsunade stood at the centre, instructing each person who came running to her and looking at the hospital figures of the injured and the surviving, whilst filling the room with her grand personage.

When Sakura and Shizune entered, she saw them and smiled, abandoning her current task and walking towards them.

"Sakura!" she cried, "Are you ready to begin your first day as a medic in the hospital? Kakashi tells me good things!"

Sakura nodded, smiling.

"This is the main wing, for all mainstream injuries." Tsunade walked her around to many other wings in the hospital so that she would know where to find them if she later needed to. These included the Hepatic Injury wing, the Cardiac Injury wing and the Renal Injury wing.

Then, they returned to the main wing, where Sakura was presented with her first task, a man with a broken radius. She breezed through this with no difficulty whatsoever, and Tsunade, impressed, presented her with a more difficult task. She succeeded once again with ease, and this continued throughout the rest of the half-day. Tsunade would present Sakura with tasks of increasing significance, which Sakura would accomplish with little difficulty. By the end of the day, Tsunade had not found a single injury which Sakura was not up to healing, or a single area in her healing in which she could find fault. She was extremely impressed that Sakura had managed to reach, and perhaps even surpass, the standard it had taken her years to reach before, in just a couple of months now. She decided to reinstate Sakura as her original position of the head of the Pulmonary Injury wing, which dealt with injuries to or in the vicinity of the lungs. This greatly surprised and gratified Sakura, who was not expecting to be made head of a whole wing on her first day. The lungs were also a favourite area of Sakura's, and she was very pleased to be able to specialise in this area, and not at all surprised that this had been her area of speciality in the past.

Tsunade took her to the wing, where she met Ayumi, who was to be her deputy, and also many others who worked in that wing. Ayumi was a lovely cheerful girl with short black hair and big blue eyes, a few years older than Sakura, who already knew Sakura as she had worked with her before. She was surprised to find Sakura very different from before; much more cheerful and much less preoccupied. She had pitied, but not particularly liked, Sakura in the past, but now found that she had completely changed and was great company.

Sakura had thoroughly enjoyed her first day at the hospital, and was looking forward to coming back the next day. She smiled as she walked down the street, accompanied by Naruto and Sasuke who had picked her up at the hospital.

Naruto's excited babbling got faster and faster as they drew closer to the place he called the closest to his heart in all of Konoha. Sasuke, however, felt his heart sinking deeper and deeper as he anticipated the ordeal he was about to go through.

Soon enough, they arrived at Ichiraku's. Naruto almost begun to cry with joy at the sight, which he had not seen for a whole hour.

The entered the store. Ichiraku smiled to see Naruto in his stall once again.

"Now, Sakura-chan, I'm going to show you the greatest creation in the history of mankind. Ramen."

Sakura's eyes narrowed.

"Ramen?" she asked incredulously. "_That_'s what you brought me here to eat? But I've eaten that a billion times before at Orochimaru's feasts! And it wasn't even that amazing."

Naruto's eyes widened and filled with tears to hear this. Sakura, meanwhile, had lost interest and was staring at a stall situated across the street with pictures of ice cream decorating its front.

"What on earth is that?" she asked, pointing to the pictures.

"Ice cream." Sasuke answered, Naruto being too busy blubbering.

"Sounds weird. Let's go!" Sakura said grabbing Sasuke and Naruto's hands and crossing the street.

"B-but-t S-sakura-chan!" Naruto said straining towards the ramen. Sasuke smirked and dragged him to the ice cream stall.

"Sakura wants _ice cream_, dobe, _not_ ramen." He gloated evilly.

Naruto pouted, but decided that ice cream was good enough. They entered the store and Naruto and Sakura ordered ice creams, all on Sasuke of course. Naruto began to slurp his down greedily whilst Sakura gazed at hers with a bemused expression on her face. She poked it.

"Look, it's squidgy and wet!" she said squeezing it.

Sasuke looked from Sakura, who was almost in a trance while staring at and poking her ice cream, to Naruto, who was already gulping down his sixth one, to the ice cream seller, who was looking at them as if they were the strangest party that had ever entered the shop, as the probably were, and felt like slamming his head against the table. Repeatedly.

Finally the ordeal ended, and, too harassed to argue about paying, Sasuke quickly paid the money and practically ran out of the shop, incredibly relieved to make it out of there without killing himself.

Naruto, content, said, "Let's go home."

Sasuke's heart sank as he knew that he would have no excuse for escorting Sakura back to her home as Naruto knew the way and would be going there anyway, and that he would have to return to the lonely confines of his own home, which had been suffocating him even more lately.

But, as luck would have it, or really fortune, he was saved.

"Fortune telling!" croaked an old voice. "Come have your fortune told!" An old woman, swathed in a black cloak stood at the corner of the street. As the three of them passed, she reached out and grabbed Sakura's arm.

"Come have your fortune told, young girl!" she rasped.

"No, Sakura." Sasuke said firmly.

"Sure!" Sakura said cheerfully.

Sasuke felt like banging his head against a wall once more.

The woman's face brightened up as she named her price, and watched Sasuke grudgingly take out his purse and hand the money over.

She then took Sakura's palm and stared at it.

"Great sadness and grief awaits you. But if you use your skill well, great happiness there will be also." Sakura gazed earnestly at her. "And what about you, young man?" She reached out and grabbed Sasuke's hand to his distaste. "For you, I sense the same. Trouble awaits, but it lies in your own heart. But, in the end, kindness and love will defeat hatred. In fact…" The woman picked up Sakura's hand once more and placed it next to Sasuke's. "Ah." She smiled knowingly.

"What is it?" Sakura asked excitedly.

Sasuke glared and snatched his hand away from the woman.

"Come on, Sakura." He dragged her away.

"But what about me?" Naruto whined, "I didn't get to have my fortune told!"

"Shut up, dobe. Nobody cares." Sasuke growled.

Both Naruto and Sakura were startled by the sudden change in Sasuke's mood and perplexed as to the reason for it, though even Naruto was tactful enough not to ask. Sasuke, however, knew exactly what had put him in such a bad temper.

'Stupid old woman. Had no idea what she was talking about.' And he thought of the lining up of his hand with Sakura's.

Sasuke walked faster and faster, for once not able to control the turmoil raging through his mind.


	20. A trip to the bookshop and a birthday

"Come, come, buy your books, old and new, cheap and expens- I mean, just cheap! Young girl, I see you want to see these books! Why not come in and have a look?" An old book-seller with a croaky throat stood at the doorway of his bookshop, and smiled a gap-toothed grin at Sakura while beckoning with his hands. Sakura looked at Sasuke. He glared at her, one eyebrow raised, almost daring her to go inside. It was too tempting for Sakura.

"Sure!" she said to the bookseller with a winning smile, which she then turned to look at Sasuke with. Sasuke almost felt like knocking her out and dragging her back home, but he knew that he would not win a physical tussle with Sakura and her inhuman strength. With a sigh, he followed Sakura and Naruto into the shop.

Naruto at once picked up a babies' book and attempted to read it with doubtful results.

Sasuke inwardly groaned as he sat down on a musty old chair and settled in to Naruto's struggles to pronounce the words he read.

"Teme, what does that say?"

"Dog. It says _dog_ dobe."

"Oh right thanks." He said, without even sensing the contempt in Sasuke's voice.

Sakura, meanwhile had begun to explore the bookshop. She had never seen a book before, in her memory, and she was fascinated by the jackets which contained many sheets of paper stuck together, each one covered in letters. She picked one up and began to browse through it.

"What are these things?" she asked in wonder.

"That one would be an encyclopaedia."

She looked up to see a boy with brown hair and kind brown eyes looking at her.

"A what?" she said, finding it hard to believe that such a complicated word existed.

"An encyclopaedia." The boy repeated, this time more slowly.

"What on earth is that?"

The boy begun to look slightly perturbed. "Um… you know… one of those books which explain stuff…"

"And what's a book?"

The boy stared at her for a minute, as if trying to gage whether she was being serious or not. In the end he decided that no matter how earnest she looked, nobody could fail to know what a book was.

He laughed. "I'm Shunnosuke. My grandfather owns this shop, so I help him out on a few days in the week."

Sakura opened her mouth slightly and nodded, trying to work out if that was a really an answer to her question.

"And who might you be?" asked Shunnosuke, after expecting a reply from Sakura but not getting one.

"Sakura."

"The missing nin!" he exclaimed. "Of course, the- hair, I should have known." He said nodding. "So where's your companion?" he said looking behind and around Sakura. "The infamous Uchiha? I heard he follows you around everywhere."

Sakura crimsoned.

"That's not fair. He has to follow me! It's one of his jobs on his community service list that the elders gave him to do as punishment when we came back."

"Yes, but I don't see him following around any of the babies whose diapers he has to change!" Shunnosuke laughed.

Sakura glared at him, turned around and began to walk away.

"Hey hey hey!" He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry, I was joking. I didn't mean to cause any offence." Sakura looked at him but said nothing. "Really! Look, can I show you around the bookstore and tell you about some of the books to make up for it? I spend so much time in here I know the place like the back of my hand!"

A small smile came onto Sakura's face at his eager expression.

"Ok."

He laughed and began to lead her around the store, showing her the different sections of books and telling jokes, as well as telling her about the time he spent in the store, and eventually his life outside the store. Sakura, in turn, told him about her loss of memory and what her journey had been like from the moment she woke up in the Sound, to where she was right then.

Sasuke meanwhile sat stretched out on his seat, his eyes closed in a continual expression of pain.

Naruto had got bored some time ago and had been continually asking him when they were going to leave. As a reply, Sasuke had grunted that he didn't know and that Naruto should go and find Sakura and ask her what was taking so long, but Naruto would reply that he couldn't be bothered, and would be silent for about twenty seconds before he asked when they were going to leave again, and the cycle began once more.

Suddenly he heard laughter and looked up to see Sakura, holding several books in her arms, with a boy who he did not know walking besides her.

His immediate reflex was to frown.

"Oh finally! I'm going outside." Naruto bounded out of the door.

"Sakura. You've spent hours in there. Can we _please_ go now?" Sasuke growled.

"Yup sure, let me just pay for these."

Sasuke inwardly raised an eyebrow, but rejoiced at the same time, thinking that for once he would not have to pay for something Sakura was buying.

But that was of course, not going to happen.

"Oh yes," Sakura turned back to Sasuke shaking her head as if wavering off some forgetfulness. "What was I thinking? _I'm _not going to pay for these." She gave the pile of books to Sasuke who, with a sigh took them to the till to pay for them.

Sakura turned to Shunnosuke to say goodbye.

"Bye," she smiled. "Thanks for showing me around. I had a great time."

"Oh, you're welcome!" Shunnosuke said. Sakura began to turn, but Shunnosuke stopped her. "Listen, do you maybe, uh, want to, I mean, uh, go out maybe, sometime?"

"What?" she asked.

"Uh, never mind, its ok." Shunnosuke was about to turn, but this time Sakura stopped him.

"No, tell me!"

"Um, well, do you want um to go out sometime?"

"Go _where_?"

"Uh well, um to a restaurant or the park, or anywhere, I guess, I mean it's up to you!"

"Uh, ok sure!"

"Really? That's amazing! Thank you! I mean, you can just come round here anytime you're free, and…"

"Why?" asked Sasuke, rejoining the group with the basket of books in hand.

"To go out!" said Sakura.

"With him." Sasuke said, more like a statement than a question.

"Yup." Sakura nodded.

Shunnosuke looked defiantly at Sasuke. The party were still for a minute. Then, something completely unexpected happened. Sasuke lunged out and hit Shunnosuke full in the face.

Sakura screamed. Shunnosuke cried out, putting his hand to his nose which was now bleeding.

"What the hell?" Sakura said.

"Come on Sakura." Sasuke grabbed Sakura's hand and pulled her out of the shop, ignoring her protests.

"You crazy bastard!" Shunnosuke shouted after them.

"What the hell was that?"

"You don't know what he wanted."

"Yes I do! He wanted to go to the restaurant or park or somewhere! Why did you have to hit him in the face?"

"You don't understand Sakura." Sasuke said raising his voice, but controlling his anger. "Just trust me, ok? He was a _bad _guy."

Sakura simply pouted and began to sulk, wrenching her hand away from Sasuke but continuing to walk.

Naruto, meanwhile, had only heard this last part of the conversation.

"What happened teme?"

"Nothing." Sasuke said forcefully. Sakura, looking down at the ground and sulking, said nothing to enlighten Naruto.

"Whatever." Naruto shrugged.

They continued to walk, but Sasuke felt even more confused than he had before. Why _had_ he hit that guy? He had done nothing except ask Sakura out! That definitely didn't deserve an attack. Sakura could go out with whoever she wanted, and it would be none of Sasuke's business. However, he could not stop himself from being glad that that he had done what he had done. It made him feel relieved. He told himself it was because the boy really might have had bad intentions with Sakura, but really he knew that he was just trying to make excuses for himself.

At the gate of his complex, he left Naruto and the sulking Sakura without a word, and slammed the gate behind him.

Naruto and Sakura continued to walk in silence until they reached their house, when they bid each other goodbye and returned to their own houses.

Ino came to say goodnight to Sakura and ask how her first day at the hospital had been, and then Sakura fell into a deep, somehow expectant, sleep.

The next day, Sakura awoke, and looked out of the window. The sun was shining, which always made her smile. She sighed with contentment, and began to get dressed in her uniform. Before she was fully dressed, however, she heard loud bangs on her door. Worried, she rushed to her door and opened it.

Behind it were all the nin who had come on the rescue party to reclaim Sakura, holding a big banner in the air.

"Surprise!" They all shouted. The banner read 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' Sakura was confused.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Ino, right at the front, enveloped Sakura in a massive hug. "It's your birthday today!"

"What's a birthday?"

"It's the date on which you were born except many years later obviously. It's the most special day in the year, for you!"

"Oh!" Sakura said, surprised.

"Tsunade's given you and six chosen friends-" Ino winked emphatically, "-the day off today! Man does she favour you. So choose quickly so everyone else can go to work."

"Uh…"

"What's that? You choose me, Tenten and Hinata, and of course Naruto and Sai because they also share this house and Sasuke because he's just generally- yeah…? OMG, that's amazing! Thank you so much! Everybody else, you can leave!" Ino said cheerfully, while the said people all groaned and left their presents in the hall before filing off to work.

"Presents!" Ino said excitedly.

She sat everyone in a circle in the hall, Sakura at its head, and made her open each present one by one. Everybody soon got used to Sakura's eternal cry of "OH MY GOD, I LOVE IT, IT'S A... what is it?" which was said after the opening of every single present, but even when she learnt what they actually were, Sakura loved each one of them. Eventually, she had opened each one of the presents in the hall, and she sat back and sighed.

"Wait…" Sasuke fished out from his pocket a small wrapped rectangle.

"Oooh!" Sakura sat forward, having adopted Ino's enthusiasm.

She ripped the wrapping off to leave a frame, in which was a picture of four figures. Herself, with a huge smile, looking unbelievably keen. Kakashi-sensei with his customary wink. And Naruto and Sasuke looking like… Naruto and Sasuke.

Sakura's eyes watered. "This is us? Team Seven?"

Sasuke nodded and looked away embarrassed.

Sakura leaned over and hugged him. "Thank you."

"Ok, enough of that now, here's MY present!" Ino squealed, pushing a large square box into Sakura's hands.

Sakura shed the box of its wrapping to reveal a strange black invention with a glass circle on the front and a button on top.

"Thanks! It's amazing, I love it, it's... what is it?" Sakura asked.

"A camera! See, you look through this hole at the top, then you click this button and its prints what you see on a little piece of paper!" Ino did a demonstration while speaking and handed the said piece of paper to Sakura. On it, she saw a picture of herself looking extremely confused, with her mouth hanging open, straight out of the paper.

"WOW THAT'S SOOO COOOL!" She grabbed the contraption from Ino and at once began taking pictures of everyone. She smiled evilly. "Now with this, we are going to have a lot of fun…"

Everyone groaned and turned away as she began to snap shots of them with the most embarrassing expressions on their faces.

Then, she saw one picture she had taken on the floor, which caught her attention. It was Naruto and Hinata both turning away from the camera and in towards each other. From the point of view of the photo, it almost looked like they were kissing. Sakura grinned as she remembered a vow made long ago, and a plan formed in her mind.


	21. Party time! and a delightful discovery

"I'm going to have a party." Sakura said abruptly.

Ino squealed with delight. "Yes yes yes yes yes! It'll be amazing! Oh my god, please let me plan it for you! There'll be music and dancing, and pretty dresses and alcohol, and…"

"No alcohol." Sakura said, shuddering at the remembrance of the last time she drank alcohol.

"But Forehead! What's a party without alcohol?"

"How old is she now?" asked Sasuke.

"Uh… 16…"

"Is that even legal?"

"Yeah of course! And I know something else that is too!" Ino nudged Sakura. Everyone blushed and turned away from each other, apart from Sasuke who didn't even move a muscle, and Sakura, who had no idea what Ino was talking about.

"What?" she asked, surprised at the awkward silence.

"Er… never mind, I'll tell you later." Ino said quickly. Everyone was relieved that they were spared a lecture on said topic, not trusting Ino to be tactful enough not to give one.

"Ok, whatever, but I am definitely having a party, fine, with alcohol if you insist-" she responded to Ino mouthing the word 'alcohol' whilst nodding very vigorously. "-but we've got to plan it and invite everyone!"

"When do you want to do it?" asked Ino.

"Today!"

"What? Er- Forehead, this kind of party needs to bit more planning than that. How will we get the invitations out in time?"

"No need for invitations, we'll just put flyers around Konoha and whoever wants can come!"

"A house party! Now we're talking!" said Ino nodding.

"Sakura, that is crazy and dangerous." Sasuke said. "Any random psychopath could turn up!"

"Yeah well… Tsh fine you're right I guess…" Sakura said, thinking it over. "Ok we'll have it on Friday."

"Awh!" Ino said, as she had been getting to like the idea of having a house party on that very day.

"Oh and!" Sakura said, a sly one-sided smile spreading across her face, "Everyone- that means _everyone_- has to bring a dance-partner."

"A dance-partner?" Ino asked incredulously.

"Well, someone who you come to the party with and dance and chat to and stuff."

"Oh, you mean a date."

"Uh- ok, I guess if that's what it's called! Everyone has to bring a date!"

An instant buzz began amongst the group.

"But you can't decide that now in front of everyone because that's rude." Sakura said loudly. When the murmuring had died down, Sakura spoke again. "Ok, now let's start planning it! Naruto and Hinata, can you please go to the party shop and buy some decorations? I'm trusting Hinata to choose some nice ones."

Hinata started blushing madly, but Naruto sensed nothing and said, "Ok sure!" and grabbed her arm, almost dragging her out of the room.

"Ok, everyone else!" Sakura said. "Basically, I'm only having this part because I want to get Naruto and Hinata together, since as you know, Hinata very obviously likes Naruto and he's too much of a blundering oaf to realise it, so please can none of you ask either of them to be your dates, or say yes if either of them asks you? I'll write it on the invitations for the other nin who we know well so they know not to be either of their dates as well. I won't write it on the invitations for people we don't know that well because they'll probably think it's weird, and I'm sure they would both think of each other first before somebody they don't know well. Besides, I'll hint to Naruto to ask her. If they can't find any other dates they'll have to go with each other!"

Everyone raised their eyebrows and smiled, and nodded to think of Sakura's clever plan, and cries of "Sure!" and "That's fine!" rang through the room. Sakura smiled to see everyone's cooperation.

"Ok, Pig and I are going to make the guest list, Tenten, could you please make a list of music which we can play? I don't trust either Sai or Sasuke to do that. Sai and Sasuke, could you please go to the supermarket and buy some canapés and some sake? And any other food you think is reasonable. Though BE SENSIBLE."

"Forehead's quite good at planning parties!" Ino said approvingly.

"Yeah, this is fun!"

And the party planning was underway, and carried on for the rest of the day.

The next day, Sakura returned to the hospital for her first full day as head of the Pulmonary Wing. She had many injuries which she had to feel, ad patients to see to, and also a lot of hospital administration to take care of. She found the latter tiring and stressful, but it was made up for by the healing she got to do, which, though challenging at times, never failed to give her a great sense of achievement.

She found her first day at the hospital tiring, but a wonderful experience, and she couldn't wait for the next one.

After work, she met Ino in the reception of the hospital, as they had planned, to walk home together. Ino, however, had different ideas.

"Forehead, we have to go shopping to buy dresses for the party!"

"What? Oh yeah… do we have to do it now? I'm tired."

"Sorry, already told Tenten and Hinata to meet us at the dress shop! Besides, we need to make sure Hinata looks absolutely stunning for Naruto!"

"Oh yeah!" Sakura brightened up at this prospect.

They walked to the shop, where they found Tenten and Hinata waiting.

After some time in the shop, Ino had chosen a short strapless purple dress with many ruffles and layers, and purple platforms to go with it, and Tenten had chosen a knee-length black and white dress with black pumps. Sakura eventually decided to choose a short black dress with spaghetti straps and a large pink bow at the hip, and laced black heels, but Hinata simply could not choose one. The other girls decided to come to her rescue. After only a few minutes of looking, Ino's hawk eyes spotted the perfect dress. It was a floor length pale green dress with a deep v-neck and a laced green flower at the hip. It was the perfect combination of simplicity and elegance and when Hinata tried it on, all of the girls decided that it complemented her colourless features like nothing else would. After choosing some plain green heels to match, the girls bought their clothes and left the shop, pleased with their purchases. They dropped Hinata off at the Hyuuga mansions, waving goodbye to the shy girl, and then continued on to their own house, where they said goodnight and settled down to a night of rest.

The next day was the day before the party, and after work, Sakura went for a last minute walk to the shops to buy anything they may have missed. Since Ino was working late, Naruto accompanied her. On the way, Sakura explained the plans for the party to him, whilst he listened and pretended to understand, nodding intelligently.

When they had made their purchases and were walking back home, Sakura suddenly noticed that they were across the road from the very bookshop which they had visited a few days ago, with disastrous results.

"I was going to invite Shunnosuke from that shop but-" Sakura began.

"Who?" asked Naruto.

"You know, that guy who showed me round the bookshop last time."

"Oh right. Yeah?"

"I was going to invite him, but I decided not to since Sasuke said he was a bad guy."

"Why?" asked Naruto, confused.

"Well, he asked me to go out, and apparently that has some meaning other than simply going outside since Sasuke punched him in the face and dragged me away and said he was a bad guy."

"Wait, what? Why did Sasuke do that?" Naruto asked, amazed.

"Because he asked me to go out and I said yes."

"You mean out on a date?"

"I don't know, he just said 'do you want to go out sometime' or something like that."

"And Sasuke _punched_ him?"

Sakura nodded. For a minute, Naruto simply stood there, to stunned to move. Then a sly smile spread across his face as even he could not fail to see the obvious meaning of Sasuke's actions.

"Well, I think you should invite him. Shunnosuke, I mean. Sasuke was definitely just being paranoid and I can't see that he did anything wrong. Besides I want to humiliate Sasuke."

"Why would asking Shunnosuke to come humiliate Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

"Because he'll probably get mad."

"You think? But why?"

"Eh… never mind, I'll explain someday. Or maybe he will."

"Oh whatever." Sakura was bored of people who couldn't be bothered to explain things to her. "Ok, let's go then."

They crossed the street and entered the shop. Shunnosuke was near the front, dusting the bookshelves. When he saw them, his expression turned to fear, but when he looked around them and saw no sign of Sasuke, he looked relieved.

"Sakura," he said in a friendly voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm having a party tomorrow for my birthday, so do you want to come? I hope it'll make up for Sasuke's behaviour before."

"Oh happy birthday! I'd love to come! But... is Sasuke coming?" he asked nervously.

"Yes, but I'll make sure he doesn't hit you again." Sakura smiled reassuringly.

Shunnosuke looked relieved. "Ok then, sure!"

"Great!" Sakura smiled and fished an invitation out of her bag and handed it to him. "See you there then!"

"Oh and," Naruto added, "You have to bring a date."

Shunnosuke's expression clouded. "But I don't know anyone who's going!"

"Uh… don't worry, you can be my date!" Sakura said, realising she didn't actually have one yet.

"Really?" Shunnosuke's expression brightened.

"Yes, of course!" Sakura beamed. "I guess that's settled then. See you tomorrow!"

They waved goodbye to the delighted Shunnosuke and left the shop to walk back to their house. Naruto smiled evilly thinking of what he had discovered about Sasuke and of the humiliation Sasuke might have to undergo the next day.

"So, Naruto, who's your date?"

"Uh... I don't have one!"

"Well, I know Hinata doesn't have one either, so why don't you ask her?"

"Really? Great! I'll ask her tomorrow."

They soon reached the house, and found Sasuke waiting in Sakura's flat. Naruto simply gave him a superior smile, said goodnight to Sakura and went upstairs.

"What are you doing here?" asked Sakura.

"Ino asked me to buy some more bottles of sake and drop them off."

"Why?"

"She said she just might have drunk a few."

Sakura shook her head tolerantly. "Ok thanks then! See you tomorrow!"

Sasuke was about to leave, when Sakura remembered something.

"Sasuke, who's your date for tomorrow?"

Sasuke didn't reply. He had automatically assumed that he would go with Sakura, not even considering the possibility of his having to ask another girl.

"Do you have one?"

Silence.

"Ok, I'll take that as a no… I'm guessing you're too proud to ask anyone, so I, being the wonderful friend I am, will find you one. It'll be a surprise!" Sakura rubbed her hands together, delighted at the thought.

The thought, however, made Sasuke feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

"What about you? Who's your date?" he asked.

"Shunnosuke." Sakura said guardedly.

"Who?"

"Shunnosuke from the bookshop."

Sasuke's eyes widened in disbelief. "But I told you he was a _bad guy_!"

"Yes, but I told Naruto what happened and he said that you were just being paranoid and that Shunnosuke didn't do anything wrong."

"You told Naruto?" Sasuke said, the cold hand of fear creeping around his heart.

Sakura nodded. "Yup."

"Everything that happened?"

She nodded once more. "Yup."

Sasuke swallowed. After hearing the story he knew that there was only one conclusion Naruto could make, and, being Naruto, he knew that he would either be untactful and blurt it out to the whole world, or worse, Sakura, or he would make some evil plan to humiliate him, _or_ he would constantly rag and annoy Sasuke about his discovery.

"Ok." he said. "I think- I think I'll go now." He bit his tongue and looked at the floor, trying to think of a solution which could save him from Naruto.

"Ok," Sakura said, confused as to why Sasuke was acting so strangely. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yeah." Sasuke quickly left the flat and the house, and walked back to his own home in a very agitated state, leaving Sakura looking bemusedly after him.


	22. A cunning plan and a slow dance

It was finally the day of the party, and Sakura was immensely excited. She looked out of the hospital window into the picturesque street outside and imagined herself walking home, quickly, as she anticipated the big event. Repeated glances at the clock made it seem to Sakura that time was passing much more slowly than usual and she willed it on.

Finally, the end of the working day came and Sakura smiled in delight as she thought of how she would finally achieve her goal of seeing Naruto and Hinata together. A slight frown dressed her features as she realised that she had not yet checked that Naruto and Hinata were each other's dates, and she made a mental note to do so upon reaching her home.

As she was about to leave the hospital, she suddenly remembered that she had another task – finding a date for Sasuke! She looked around in panic. She could not ask someone completely random who she did not know, but she did not want to ask someone she knew very well either. Her eyes alighted on the perfect solution as they fell upon her assistant Ayumi, who she had in fact forgotten to invite.

"Ayumi-chan!" she called. Ayumi, who had been packing away the files for today, turned around smiling, and said "Yes?"

"As it was my birthday on Wednesday, I'm having a party today at my house! Would you like to come?"

"I'd love to!" Ayumi said, delighted that Sakura considered her a good enough friend to invite to her birthday party.

"Great! But, you need to bring a date."

"Oh.." Ayumi's face fell. Who on earth could she take to Sakura's party?

"If you don't have anyone in mind, I'll arrange one for you! I promise you'll absolutely adore him."

"O-ok.." Ayumi said, for lack of a better solution. "What's his name?"

"That's a surprise!" Sakura said, "It'll be a blind date." Through watching many chick flicks with Ino, she had learnt what this was. "So be at my house by 7!"

"Al-alright!" Ayumi called after Sakura who had grabbed her coat and was already disappearing through the door.

Sakura grinned in glee as she thought of her accomplishments. She was sure Ayumi and Sasuke would get on famously. No, on second thoughts, she wasn't sure of that, getting on famously with Sasuke wasn't a task within the abilities of anyone not superhuman, but who cared? At least she'd found him a date at last minute.

She almost skipped all the way home, and burst into the house with a sigh of exultation. Now, the hard work of getting the place and herself ready before people arrived would begin!

She shouted for Ino and Tenten to come downstairs and together they began to decorate the house with the decorations which had been bought by Hinata and Naruto earlier. Banners and streamers were placed on the walls, with balloons lying about in the rooms, and a huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling in the entrance hall. Huge speakers, found by Sasuke in some corner of his huge mansion, obviously unused by him, were fitted in every room on the ground floor. They even found a light fixture which changed colour which they placed in the pond outside. The trio prepared trays of snacks and drinks to be left on the sideboard. At last, the house was ready for the guests.

Sakura, Ino and Tenten all stood back and sighed with pleasure at their handiwork. A look at the clock told them there was only half an hour before guests would begin to arrive, and they tore upstairs to Ino and Tenten's apartment to get themselves ready.

On the way up, they met Naruto running down the stairs towards Sakura's apartment in a state of great agitation.

"Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan!" he said.

"Yes Naruto?" Sakura replied, alarmed.

"I haven't got a date! I got so caught up in everything that I forgot to ask anyone!"

Sakura, Ino and Tenten looked at each other in exasperation. They could only hope that Hinata hadn't found another date by this time.

"Well, we've all got dates!" Ino said. She was going with Shikamaru, and Tenten with Kiba.

"So what should I do?" Naruto asked despairingly.

"Hmm… have you asked… Hinata?" Tenten asked.

Naruto's face lit up. "I haven't! I'll go to her house and ask her right now!" He dashed down the stairs, realised he had no shoes on, and then dashed up the stairs to get them.

The three girls staring after him were too used to his behaviour to even comment.

They continued on to Ino and Tenten's apartment to get changed.

* * *

The party had begun and Sasuke was having one of the worst times of his life. The girl who Sakura had introduced as his date, and whose name he couldn't even remember, had gasped when she had seen him and after that been too terrified to say a single word to him, and had practically run away as soon as Sakura left. By stark contrast, almost every single other girl he had seen had thrown themselves at him and almost smothered him.

At the moment he was hiding behind a bush in the garden, lest any of them catch sight of him. This had actually been his original plan, due to his need to hide from Naruto, but he had actually not caught sight of Naruto even once the entire evening.

"Ah Sasuke! There you are!" he was accosted by Sakura, holding the hand of his date, which she immediately thrust into his. "How rude of you to leave poor Ayumi alone! I'd better not find you abandoning her again." Poor Sasuke, who had actually been willing to try and make an acquaintance with his date, stared after Sakura who had promptly walked away, whilst Ayumi wrenched her hand away from his and ran away. He glared after her.

Sakura meanwhile, was having the time of her life. She loved being a hostess and catering to all her guests needs, not to mention all the dancing that came with it, and she was really enjoying spending time with her date Shunnosuke, who was on the dance floor at the moment. Her only worry was that she had not seen Naruto and Hinata anywhere throughout the evening.

Her worries were put to rest as she entered the house and saw Naruto in the middle of he dance floor. But where was Hinata? Her face creased into a frown as she noticed that Naruto was looking around him with a distressed expression. She hurried over to him.

"Naruto! What happened? Where's Hinata?"

"She already has a date! And I couldn't find anyone else!"

"What?" Sakura gasped. But she had made sure… "Who?"

Naruto pointed at the entrance. Sakura turned to see Hinata looking at the floor with downcast eyes, and not wearing the dress they had bought for her, but a plain yellow robe that made her seem to fade into the background. Naruto looked after her with a hurt and forlorn expression.

Sakura frowned as she noticed that a tall young man with jet black hair and pale blue eyes set too close together stood arrogantly next to her. He surveyed the room with a scornful expression and then said loftily, "Fetch me a drink." Hinata at once scurried off.

Having only seen the boy once, Sakura had already developed an intense disliking for him. She ran after Hinata.

"Hinata, who is that?"

"I am sorry Sakura-chan, my father would not let me come unless I brought him as an escort. He is the son of one of Father's most influential business partners. Father plans to make a match between us." Sakura could hear the quiet distress in her voice as she spoke.

"And where's the dress we bought?" she asked.

"Sora-san – that is, that man – would not let me wear it. He said it was too extravagant."

Sakura stared at the ostentatiously dressed man in disgust. Right then, she made a vow that she would get rid of him before the night was over.

Her disgust increased as she saw that he was in fact arrogantly flirting with many of the other girls in the room, who, attracted by his apparent wealth and status, had left their dates to talk to him. Hinata scurried off to hand him his drink and do any other chores he may wish, while Sakura hurried off to find Ino and Tenten. On the way, she met Shunnosuke.

"Sakura! There you are! I've been looking for you everywhere. Let's dance!"

"Sorry, Shunnosuke, I've got to run!" she hurried off, leaving Shunnosuke looking bemusedly after her.

Once she had found Ino and Tenten, she took them upstairs, which was off limits for the guests, and explained the situation to them. Together, they came up with a cunning plan.

Ino, by far the most experienced in this field, was to be the bait. She hitched up her skirt and re-applied her make-up, and then walked downstairs with a sway in her step. When she was sure that Hinata was nowhere in sight, she stepped into the middle of the dance floor, directly in Sora's line of vision, and placed her hands on her hips, with a pout on her face. She turned to face Sora, who had, as she had counted on, noticed her and was staring at her, and let a seductive smile play on her lips. He returned the smile, and parted the crowd of girls around him to walk towards her.

This time, there was a hint of evil in Ino's smile as she whispered into his ear with her hand on his chest.

"Why don't we go upstairs? I have a friend who's just dying to meet you."

Delighted at the idea of being alone with two girls as good-looking as this one, Sora nodded and let Ino take his hand and guide his upstairs. As they entered a room, presumably a bedroom, he heard Ino say "Oh Maguro! I've brought someone special up."

On entering the room, he saw that it was empty except for the girl who had brought him up. He frowned and proceeded further, in case he could not see a part of it from that angle. And then, he felt a sharp jab in his neck, and everything went black.

As the odious man fell to the ground, Ino high-fived Sakura and Tenten, who had been standing behind the door, ready to deliver the blow when Sora entered the room.

"Good touch with the 'Maguro'!" Sakura said approvingly.

"Yes, I thought it would be best not to use anyone's real name in case he remembers anything when he wakes up."

Now that Sora was unconscious, phase 2 of the plan begun. Ino began to loosten Sora's clothing, while Sakura and Tenten ran downstairs. Tenten ran to the drinks table and picked up as many bottles of sake as she could carry, before running back upstairs while Sakura ran straight to the huge crowd of girls which she knew would be around Sasuke. However, on the way, she was accosted by Shunnosuke.

"Sakura! Can you dance now?"

"Later, Shunnosuke!"

She brushed him aside to barge through the crowd, thrusting every girl aside with no difficulty, before grabbing Sasuke and dragging him away.

The girls looked after, astounded to see Sasuke acquiescing and following her without protest, without her having to say a single word.

"Sorry girls!" she shouted back at them. "I'll bring him back later!"

"Damn." Sasuke muttered. He followed Sakura up the stairs and into Ino's bedroom, where, to his immense astonishment, he found Ino and Tenten standing over an unconscious man, whom Sasuke did not know, and pouring sake all over him!

"What…?" Sasuke said, aghast.

"No time to explain!" Sakura said. "You need to transport me and this man just outside the main gate of the Hyuuga mansions."

"Why not the one closest to us?"

"I said, no time to explain! It has to be the far one!"

Sasuke shrugged and grabbed both Sakura and the man. In a flash they were outside the main gate of the mansions. Sakura threw the man behind a conveniently located tree. "Can you transport me inside?" she asked.

"No, estates like this are protected against transportation."

Sakura had expected such a thing and was prepared. She told Sasuke to hide behind the tree. She then did a quick transformation jutsu and soon, she looked exactly like Hinata. She rang the bell of the gate.

A servant answered.

"Hinata-san! Where is Sora-san?"

"He sent me back to fetch his… umm… money."

The servant looked confused, but before he could say anything. Sakura brushed past him. She had been invited to the mansions by Hinata before and knew her way to Hinata's room. Once inside, she ransacked her wardrobe, before finally, she came across the dress they had bought a few days ago. Holding it she surreptitiously snuck out of the building and back out of the gate before anyone could notice her. Once outside, she transformed back to her normal form and went behind the tree where Sasuke was waiting for her with the unconscious Sora.

She dragged him and placed him right in front of the gate, where he was sure to be found the next morning, soaked in alcohol. Sasuke then transported the two of them back to the party. Sakura thrust him into the middle of the dance floor, where he was immediately surrounded by a crowd of girls. She was about to go upstairs, when she heard someone shout "Sakura!" and she turned to face Shunnosuke. "Are we ever going to dance?" he asked, exasperated.

"Sure, Shunnosuke, just give me a minute!"

She then rushed up the stairs to Ino's bedroom, where Ino was sitting with the dubious Hinata, who had been told that Sora had got bored and gone home. Sakura thrust the dress into her lap.

"Don't ask questions, just wear it!"

Hinata looked from the dress to Sakura to the dress, amazed. However, though the conscience of the sensitive girl may have pricked her had she known what had really become of Sora, she allowed herself not to ask questions, and simply delightedly change into the beautiful dress.

In the meantime, Sakura, leaving Hinata in the capable hands of Ino, had rushed downstairs to inform Tenten, who had informed Naruto of Hinata's plight and was now briefing him on what to do, that Hinata would soon come downstairs.

"Remember, Naruto," Tenten warned, "Don't act like an idiot!"

The two girls laughed with glee as they thought of what would soon happen. Suddenly they heard Naruto gasp and turned to see him look at the stairs with his mouth hanging open. They both turned to see Hinata walking slowly down the stairs. In the darkness, her pale features seemed to almost glow, and she looked like a supernatural being, coming down from the heavens. She looked straight ahead, directly at Naruto, with a confidence that the girls had never seen before, and even they looked with their mouths hanging open. As she came down the stairs, almost everyone turned to watch this majestic fairy-like creature walking down the stairs. As for Naruto, he was completely enchanted.

Sakura looked up to see Ino at the top of the stairs, her hands on her hips, looking proudly at her achievement. Sakura slowly nodded in acknowledgement of Ino's masterpiece.

By this time, Hinata had reached the bottom of the stairs and walked straight to Naruto. She put her hand out. "Would you like to dance, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto nodded, and took her hand, gliding onto the dance floor as if in a dream.

Sakura rushed to the stereo system and chose a host of slow songs to be played next, perfect for this moment. She surveyed her accomplishment with satisfaction. It was even better than she had hoped for. By taking the initiative, Hinata had put the finishing touches to Sakura's plan and ensured its success. Who would have thought shy little Hinata could have blossomed into a confident young woman in the matter of an evening?

She then remembered her complete neglect of her own date the whole evening, and, slightly abashed, went to find him. However, he seemed to have completely disappeared and she resorted to asking Kiba and Shikamaru, who had also been abandoned by their dates and were standing at the side of the dance floor, bored.

"Do you know where Shunnosuke is?"

"Oh he left a while ago." Kiba said, "Said he couldn't be bothered to wait for you since you were clearly never going to come."

"Oh." Sakura felt slightly bad, having invited Shunnosuke here as her date and then not having spent a single moment with him, after the first half hour, but there was nothing she could do now.

Sighing she went into her bedroom, where the music was still playing, to re-apply her make-up. Luckily it was empty, and Sakura shut the door, as she walked to the mirror and took her lipstick out. As she was about to apply it, she noticed a congregation on girls outside the window in the garden. She grinned. Feeling slightly sorry for Sasuke, she decided to rescue him. She stuck her head out of the window and yelled, "Sasuke has herpes!"

The effect was immediate. All of the girls immediately stepped away from the centre of the circle with a gasp, to reveal Sasuke, looking equally shocked, standing in the middle. Sakura jumped out of her window, which was big enough to climb out of and grabbed Sasuke's hand before anyone had time to recover. She dragged him back into her room, shutting the window after her.

"Don't say you're not glad I just saved you." She said grinning.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Where the hell did you learn what herpes was?"

"Ino."

"I should've guessed."

Sakura sat down on the bed grinning, but soon she was restless. She jumped up.

"Let's dance!" she said.

"What? No- Sakura, seriously- please, I mean-" Sasuke did not want a repetition of last time they had danced.

"But Sasuke, I've barely danced at all this evening after the first half an hour! Come on, just for me." And before Sasuke could argue, he was pulled into a slow waltz with Sakura, as the slow song was still playing.

As they danced, Sasuke felt his eyes become fixed on Sakura's. Her expression changed from playfulness to earnestness, and he felt like he was falling, lost in her sea-green eyes. Both of them were in a trance, unable to pull away, or even look away. Sasuke felt his face grow closer to Sakura's. He felt alarm bells ringing, begging him to push her away and end this, but he couldn't.

Suddenly, a sound was heard as Naruto burst the door open.

"Sakura-chan I just wanted to say-" Sakura and Sasuke sprung apart blushing.

Naruto's eyes were raised.

"Yes?" Sakura said, brushing herself down and moving as far away from Sasuke as possible.

"Thank you for a great time.." Naruto said slowly. Then, Hinata came into the room.

"Oh Sakura-chan, has Naruto-kun told you the good news?"

"No!" Sakura said, glad for anything to distract Naruto from what he had just seen. It worked.

"Me and Hinata are going out, Sakura-chan!" he said excitedly.

"Where?" Sakura asked confused.

Remembering that Sakura did not know the meaning of this, Naruto amended his sentence.

"I mean, we're together."

"Oh wow, I'm so happy for you guys!" Sakura said, genuinely elated, but finding it hard to focus on anything due to the chaos that was going on in her mind. She followed them outside into the entrance hall to see that most people had left by that time, except for those who lived there.

"I'm just going to take Hinata home, Sakura-chan. I'll be back soon." Naruto said.

"Sure, Naruto." Sakura nodded. She saw them out of the door. In the meantime, Sasuke slipped out, avoiding another encounter with the flustered Sakura, leaving her to wave goodbye to all the other departing guests, before retiring to her room and falling flat on her bed, too shocked to even change, the events of a few minutes ago filling her mind with tumult.


	23. A knockout and history repeats itself

The next few weeks passed mercifully uneventfully. Sasuke and Sakura continued to avoid each other and had not spoken to or even seen each other for four weeks since the party. Fortunately for them, Naruto had decided to spend a lot of time with Sasuke, the reason for which the other nin attributed to his weirdness, though this was not the true reason, so people did not comment on their absence from each other's presence, simply believing that they had been busy and preoccupied, one with her work at the hospital, and the other with his community service and his new distraction of Naruto.

However, Sasuke was less fortunate in the latter respect as the reason Naruto decided to grace him with his company was to continually taunt him with the new knowledge he had gained over him. He enjoyed lazing around in the Uchiha compound, making full use of its facilities, and continuously ragging Sasuke.

Sasuke threatened to throw him out; he threatened to stand outside and shout what he knew as loudly as he could for everyone to hear (and this was loud); Sasuke bought him some ramen.

"Attaboy, teme," said Naruto with a superior smirk.

This continued for the duration of the four weeks, and, all the time, Sasuke longed for something that would distract the dobe and get him out of his compound.

And soon enough, it came.

One morning, Naruto casually sauntered into the Uchiha compound as usual, holding a scroll. He noticed a similar one on the floor of Sasuke. Finding the task of reading the two sentences of text beyond his abilities, he screamed him usual command for Sasuke to make his presence known.

As usual, Sasuke slouched down the stairs, glaring at Naruto, too lazy to bother using his chakra to transport for the benefit of said retard.

"Teme what does this say?" Naruto said loudly, thrusting the scrolls at Sasuke.

Sasuke frowned. This wasn't part of the usual routine. He quickly perused the scrolls and then tossed them onto his sofa.

"Come on, dobe, we've been summoned to the Hokage's office," he said, grabbing Naruto and transporting to the outside of the building, which, like most important buildings, was protected against transportation from the outside.

"What? Why?" Naruto groaned, "What does baa-chan want now?"

Sasuke didn't bother answering, and instead walked into the building, and up the stairs, until they reached the door that they new was the entrance to the Godaime's office. Here he knocked, to be answered by Shizune, who ushered them into the room.

Inside the room, sat the Hokage behind her desk, but also, before it, stood Sai and Sakura. Both turned as Naruto and Sasuke entered, though Sakura quickly averted her eyes and turned back to Tsunade.

Glad that Sai stood closer to the entrance, and Naruto could not force him next to Sakura, Sasuke stood facing the Godaime. Naruto, however, slouched and glared at her.

In return he got a cold look of chastisement, by which he was quickly abashed, and straightened up.

"I have summoned the four of you here, because I wish to entrust you with a mission." Tsunade paused. "You are all now at least Chuunin level nin, so I see fit to trust you with a mission of such import."

Sasuke eyes internally widened. Naruto was a Chuunin? He had seriously underestimated him in that case. Though who could blame him, the guy couldn't even read!

"I wish the four of you to escort a scroll to the Kazekage. What is in the scroll is of no consequence to you, only be aware that you must guard it with your lives. For this reason, I will give you two scrolls, one of which is a decoy, to deliver. Nobody, not even you, except for me, will know which is which. And of course the Kazekage when he opens them. I wish you to travel in pairs for greater security, one pair carrying each scroll. I thought it would be nice for all four members of Team 7 to be reunited in a mission again. Remember that both pairs must keep in contact at all times so they can help each other if attacked. Clear?"

All four nin nodded.

"I'm with Sakura-chan!" Naruto said loudly and cheerfully, breaking the solemn silence.

Sasuke was surprised. Though he had no great love for Sai, this was the best possible solution for him, as he was spared both the embarrassment of travelling with Sakura, and the irritation of travelling with Naruto. He wondered why Naruto had himself engineered this in Sasuke's favour.

Little did he know that Naruto had a cunning plan up his sleeve.

Tsunade handed a scroll to Sakura and a scroll to Sai. Then the four left the building and walked to the gates of the city. Naruto did a quick jutsu that enabled Sasuke to hear everything he said, and vice versa, so that they could keep contact. Then, they separated, both pairs travelling parallel to each other but about 200m apart.

Sasuke and Sai travelled silently, but Naruto was constantly chattering away to Sakura, unfortunately for Sasuke, who hadn't been able to nominate Sai to keep contact fast enough.

Sasuke was growing used to Naruto's constant chatter, which was even directed at him sometimes, though it received no answer, when suddenly, Naruto fell silent.

Sasuke frowned, but continued. Then as he listened closer, he realised that he could hear scuffling and deep breathing. He stopped Sai and listened closer.

Suddenly a shout erupted from the other end.

"Don't touch her, you freak!"

Sasuke's eyes widened.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan, no! You can't do this! You can't die! Don't you dare leave me! Help!"

Sasuke felt the whole world slow down. He could hear the blood rushing through his ears. His pulse seemed to almost vanish. He could hear a tinkling sound somewhere. Tinkling laughter. Sakura. Fading.

"No," he mouthed. And transported.

Straight into a tree.

* * *

"Don't touch her you freak!"

Sakura looked at Naruto as if he was crazy.

"Who are you talking to, Naruto?"

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan, no! You can't do this! You can't die! Don't you dare leave me! Help!"

"Naruto what the hell are you talking about? I'm not dying, I'm right here!"

Naruto held his finger to his lips, signalling for her to be quiet. She looked around, more bemused than ever.

Suddenly. They both heard a thud behind them, and turned around to see Sasuke collapsing to the ground behind a tree.

"Sasuke?" Sakura said in alarm. They both rushed to his side, worried. Sakura turned him onto his front and examined him.

"Oh, he's fine," she said in relief, "he's just bruised and unconscious from banging into that tree."

Naruto threw his head back and laughed with extreme mirth. Sakura, more confused than ever, tried to subdue him as Sai emerged through the trees.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Sakura explained what had happened.

"Yes, on my side, he just suddenly signalled at me to stop moving and then after a minute his eyes widened and he started sort of swaying, I thought he was under the control of some sort of jutsu, and then he suddenly just transported."

"What? Why would he-" suddenly, her face cleared as she understood what had happened. "Naruto, you idiot. This is your fault."

He nodded, still spluttering with laughter.

"I was only expecting a 'don't leave me Sakura' or something embarrassing along those lines, but this is way better than I expected. Priceless!" he said, still chortling.

Sakura glared at him, while Sai looked confused. "Well, you can have the pleasure of carrying him back to Konoha. Sai and I will take both of the scrolls."

"No problem!" he said still laughing. He grabbed Sasuke and transported, since they were as of yet still not too far from Konoha to do so.

Sakura raised her eyebrows. 'Who knew Naruto could transport?' she thought.

"Come on ugly, we've got some scrolls to deliver." Sai said, grinning. Sakura gave him a playful slap on the arm, which left a bruise.

"Oops!" Sakura said. "This strength of mine, you know."

Sai rolled his eyes and the pair continued to Suna.

Meanwhile, Naruto reached the gates of Konoha and walked in still laughing and waving at the guards, who looked bemused to see a hysterical Naruto dragging an unconscious Sasuke through the gates.

Naruto quickly reached the hospital and deposited Sasuke there, not bothered or even able to describe what had happened due to the fits of laughter he was still experiencing. He simply instructed the bewildered nurse to have him summoned when Sasuke awoke – that was something he wasn't going to miss.

Then he simply returned home, still in mirth.

When Sasuke did awake, it was barely five minutes before Naruto arrived, and informed him of what had happened.

"You transported into a tree, teme!" he said, shrieking with renewed laughter. "A tree!"

Sasuke couldn't believe it. Had he actually lost so much control of his senses that he was unable to sense an obstacle as big as a _tree_? Right in front of him? It was beyond belief.

Naruto took Sasuke's silence to be simple embarrassment, but it was more than this. Inside, Sasuke was brooding. How could he have let this happen? Would this have ever happened in the past? Of course not! How had his standards dropped so low? How on earth could he ever dream of killing Itachi with this kind of weakness?

He was soon discharged from the hospital, due to the nature of his injury which wasn't serious, and stormed home. Naruto attempted to follow him inside, but Sasuke's utterance of the words "Get lost, dobe." was so savage, that even Naruto halted, shocked, as Sasuke slammed the gates in his face.

The next few days passed with seemingly no difference. Sakura and Sai returned without event and gave their mission report to Tsunade, who did nothing but raise her eyes when she heard of Sasuke's accident, and internally note that the ninja's martial standards must have considerably dropped to allow something like that to occur.

Aside from this, nothing changed. Naruto continued to visit Sasuke every day, with something new to taunt him about. Sasuke seemed the same silent, taciturn boy he had always been.

However, on the inside, he was boiling with anger. He was angry at himself for letting this happen. As the days passed, he realised what a waste of time life in Konoha was. It was so lazy and peaceful. Nothing ever occurred to challenge him or make him use his abilities. And nobody ever trained or seemed to aspire to anything greater than their own, normal, everyday lives.

But he was not like that. He had a goal in mind. And he was not going to stop till he had achieved that. Or so he had thought until Sakura had entered his life.

He knew that deep down, she was the reason for the change in his personality. Because of her, he was no longer motivated towards his aim. She was a weakness. His only weakness. But that had got to change. He knew that he had to choose now between her and his aim. And he knew which he had to choose.

It was going to be hard. Sasuke's brow felt laden with sorrow as he thought of everything he was going to leave behind. Everything that he loved, and lived for. But he knew he couldn't, wouldn't, let his life's ambition go for this. He had to be strong.

And he didn't realise that true strength was required to admit that he had changed, admit that what he used to strive for with every inch of his being was no longer what he wanted, and that the noble thing to do would be to choose love over hatred, life over death.

This did not cross his mind, overcast with shadow, and instead he resolved to do what he had done years ago, in order to achieve the same goal.

It was in the deepest part of night, exactly a week after the mission had gone so horribly wrong for Sasuke, that he shut the gates of the Uchiha compound, resolved not to return until he had achieved his goal, just as he had done years ago. But this time he promised himself, with a grim look at the building behind him, that he was not coming back.

However he had one stop to make before he left Konoha. He transported to the outside of Sakura's house. He looked at the peaceful exterior, and then transported inside her room.

His heart tightened and he felt a knot in his throat as he looked down at the sleeping girl. She was so peaceful. Sasuke watched her sleep, and time seemed to lose all meaning. It was like reading, or looking at stars like he had done with her so long ago. So calm. So beautiful. For the first time, Sasuke allowed himself to admit that she was beautiful. What did it matter, when he was leaving for good?

He suddenly started as Sakura moved, stretching, and remembered why he was here.

"Goodbye," he whispered, looking around the room, unable to face her. As he looked he noticed the photo he had given her for her birthday on a shelf. He felt a strange sense of déjà-vu as he put the photo down on its front.

Then he took one last fleeting glance at the girl and transported out of the room. Once outside, he began to slowly walk to the gates of the city, lacking the energy and conviction to transport.

He was almost there, when he heard a sleepy voice behind him.

"Sasuke?" it said.

He turned to see Sakura, rubbing her half closed eyes. The sense of déjà-vu was so strong it was almost overpowering.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What are _you_ doing?" he replied emotionlessly.

"You woke me up when you were in my room.. Are you going somewhere?" she asked, noticing Sasuke's backpack of supplies.

"Go back to bed Sakura."

"And why did you put my photo down?" she said only stepping closer.

Part of Sasuke begged him to end it now and just repeat his actions of three years ago, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Go back to bed Sakura." he repeated.

She stood silently for a few minutes.

"Sasuke you're not.. leaving are you?" she whispered.

It began to lightly rain.

"It's raining Sakura. Go back to bed."

Silent tears began to fall down her cheeks. Sasuke felt as if his heart was being torn apart.

"Why?" she whispered.

She stumbled forwards and put her arms around him.

"Please, Sasuke." She begged. Her sobs racked his body.

"Sakura." His voice was cold, though on the inside, he was in anguish.

He separated her from him, but she simply screamed, "No!" and fell to her knees, clasping his.

"Don't do this to me Sasuke. They said you did it before, don't do it again. You're my best friend... I need you, Sasuke," he voice seemed to die out, but renewed itself, reaching a high pitch, as he extracted himself from her grasp, "It's not fair!"

But she didn't have the energy to fight, and she collapsed onto the wet floor, her tears and the rain mingled and indistinguishable on her face. She curled into a small ball.

Sasuke turned abruptly. He could bear it no longer. The emotion spilled onto his face, but she could not see it, or she may have tried entreating him once again, and it may have succeeded.

"I-I'm sorry." His voice broke. And with that, he transported out of the city, and out of Sakura's life.


End file.
